This isn’t a political post, per se, but it raises a question that has some bearing on our present plight, considering that the person occupying the White House built a career based on fraud, much of which involved misrepresenting his own abilities.
I ran across this articleon ProPublica. It’s titled I’m a Journalist. Apparently I’m also one of America’s “Top Doctors.”The journalist in question is Justin Volz. Volz writes:
My eyes narrowed when the woman on the voice message told me to call about my “Top Doctor” award.
They needed to “make sure everything’s accurate” before they sent me my plaque, she said.
It was a titillating irony. I don’t have a medical degree, and I’m not a physician. But I am an investigative journalist who specializes in health care. So I leaned forward in my seat with some anticipation when I returned the call last year. I spoke to a cheerful saleswoman named Anne at a company on New York’s Long Island that hands out the Top Doctor Awards. For some reason, she believed I was a physician and, even better, worthy of one of their awards. Puzzled and amused, I took notes.
I asked how I had been selected. My peers had nominated me, she said buoyantly, and my patients had reviewed me. I must be a “leading physician,” she said.
Later:
On my call with Anne from Top Doctors, the conversation took a surreal turn.
“It says you work for a company called ProPublica,” she said, blithely. At least she had that right.
I responded that I did and that I was actually a journalist, not a doctor. Is that going to be a problem? I asked. Or can you still give me the “Top Doctor” award?
There was a pause. Clearly, I had thrown a baffling curve into her script. She quickly regrouped. “Yes,” she decided, I could have the award.
It’s an open secret in the legal profession that the various awards with which many lawyers festoon their websites are purchased by the honorees. Those seeking to honor me didn’t make contact by phone; they littered my email inbox on a daily basis.
The only financial advice I can recall giving my clients was that my social security clients should open checking accounts so they could get their checks direct deposited. Apparently that advice was good enough to qualify me for an award honoring me as the best financial adviser in the WORLD!. That one sticks in my head solely because it was so off the mark.
There is a certain magazine published in this state, which actually bears the name of this state, which gives such awards. Do I have proof that its readers choices are heavily influenced by the exchange of lucre? No, but I have my suspicion based on the fact that the lawyers it has honored have included some folks that are almost comically inept. I have some questions about the restaurants the readers have chosen as well.
I’ve often wondered whether these honoring institutions have some potential liability should some poor sucker, impressed by, for instance, my credentials as the world’s best financial adviser, should lose his or her shirt after following my advice. In truth, I humbly turned down the award, but in a different universe I accepted it, and there may now be several bankrupt advisees in that alternate universe. Do they have a case? I’d say they do, but I also recall that a lot of the awarding institutions (putting magazines aside for the moment) were located safely overseas.
So far as I know, neither the legal profession nor the medical, judging by Volz’s experience, bother to police the advertising of these awards, which are arguably false and deceptive representations. We have normalized fraud, which is sadly consistent with what we’ve done with the fraudster in chief.
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