A 31-year-old woman was recently sentenced to 2 years in prison for impersonating a physician and then an ophthalmologist for years without any medical training.
It all started in 2018, when Sonia, a 31-year-old woman from Meaux, in northern France, decided to try her luck as a physician, without undergoing any medical training. Sonia had a bachelor’s degree in real estate management, but she didn’t let that get in the way of attaining a lucrative job as a general physician. The woman forged a bunch of diplomas from the Faculty of Strasbourg and a false certificate on the board of the Order of Physicians, and not only got the job, but saw patients for three years before anyone noticed she had no business being a doctor.
The woman not only practiced medicine for almost three years until being exposed in October of 2021, but she then moved on to the next best professional career, this time becoming an ophthalmologist. To make matters worse, for most of her time as a physician, Sonia wore a tagging bracelet around her ankle, for crimes committed previous to her appointment as a GP.
“France Live” reports that the 31-year-old woman had been convicted of a “breach of trust” in 2019, but since companies didn’t check her credentials, she had no problem posing as a medical professional. After using the identities of two actual doctors who happened to share her name, Sonia was able to earn nearly 70,00 0 euros from her fake career.
During the three and a half years that she worked as a doctor, Sonia performed around 20 vaccinations against Covid19, and prescribed various medications, despite not knowing what she was prescribing.
During her recent trial, the mother of three children explained that she was “driven by the need for money”. She was sentenced to three years in prison, two of which represent ‘hard time’, without the possibility of parole.