📰 From the news · Impersonating a real college/agent
A forged Tulane degree, a fake residency match letter, a resident physician's badge and 37 prescriptions under two real doctors' numbers: the Baton Rouge paramedic sentenced to six months
In the United States a doctor is licensed state by state, and every prescriber carries a National Provider Identifier, the NPI number pharmacies and insurers use to tie a prescription to a practitioner. Hospitals are expected to check a degree, a residency placement and a licence before issuing a badge. A Louisiana federal case that ended in November 2025 shows how an insider used forged paperwork to pass those checks from 2018 until late 2022.
According to EMS1, republishing The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate, Samrat Mukherjee, 37, was a paramedic with Acadian Ambulance Service who from 2018 falsely claimed to be a licensed physician. He presented a fake Tulane University School of Medicine degree and a fraudulent residency match letter, although he had never attended medical school. Wearing clothing with "M.D." and "Flight Surgeon" insignia, he obtained a resident physician's badge at Baton Rouge General Medical Center, visited the ICU of Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center at least twice and had full access to several other hospitals.
Between May 2019 and November 2022 he called in 37 prescriptions using the NPI numbers of two real doctors, the same report said. WAFB reported that in October 2022 he allegedly forged a doctor's signature to prescribe Ondansetron 4 mg to a cancer patient, and that pharmacies billed Medicaid and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana for his prescriptions. One of the two doctors, an Ochsner physician, reported him in December 2022, EMS1 reported. A grand jury indicted Mukherjee in December 2023. On 10 March 2025 he pleaded guilty to false statements relating to health-care matters; WAFB quoted the US Department of Justice as saying he admitted he "falsely held himself out to co-workers and friends as a licensed medical doctor". WBRZ reported that on Tuesday 4 November 2025 US District Judge John deGravelles sentenced him to six months, the low end of the presentencing range, citing no prior record and his continued education.
The mechanism was simple. A degree and a match letter were accepted as documents rather than verified with the institutions that supposedly issued them, and a telephone prescription was accepted because it quoted a genuine NPI number, not because anyone confirmed the caller was that doctor. It took one of the doctors whose number was being used, not a hospital audit, to stop it.
The lesson for students and families runs through every impostor case elsewhere on this site. A printed degree, a match letter or an acceptance letter proves nothing on its own. Verify with the awarding university and the licensing regulator directly, in writing, through contact details you found yourself. Before paying a college or an agent: the register, not the paper.
Were you affected by this case, or something like it? Report it with your own evidence, or tell your story — first-person accounts are what stop the next family.
This is a news-sourced case summary written by the TrustMBBS team, not a first-person account; see the sources above. They reflect one person's experience and are not a verdict on any institution. Report your own: Report a scam or tell your story.