A stolen diploma with the name changed, 100 patients in Rocha: Uruguay's medical student who worked more than a year as a doctor

Uruguay has a small medical profession in which private mutualistas and the state health provider ASSE are expected to confirm a doctor's credentials before anyone takes a shift. According to Infobae, the checks a public hospital asked for in this case were the original degree certificate, registration with the Colegio Médico and proof of affiliation to the Caja de Profesionales Universitarios. A case in the department of Rocha, which came to light in October 2025 and reached a court formalisation in June 2026, showed how one altered document passed a private employer for more than a year while the public employer's paperwork check caught it.

According to Infobae (15 June 2026), a 32-year-old medical student who had been close to graduating but left her studies and returned to her home town presented herself as a doctor at Colectivo Médico Rochense (Comero), a private mutualista in Rocha. Infobae reported that she held only an intermediate technical qualification in health promotion, that she used a medical diploma belonging to a Montevideo doctor she knew, said to have been stolen in the capital, and that she replaced the owner's name with her own. Comero had vacancies, hired her for home on-call shifts from April 2024 and paid her for them. The complaint, as reported by Infobae, says she saw just over 100 patients; it found no malpractice and described her as cautious, often referring cases to specialists or continuing existing medication. Other doctors at Comero nonetheless noticed wrong decisions and basic errors, an internal investigation followed and the mutualista filed a criminal complaint.

Infobae added that the fraud was first detected by the human resources department of the public Hospital de Rocha when she applied for an ASSE post: her Caja de Profesionales affiliation number belonged to someone else, and when asked to present her original title, register with the Colegio Médico and prove her Caja affiliation she did not respond. The hospital's director, quoted by Infobae from El País, said there were "many inconsistencies". Teledoce (Telemundo, 10 June 2026) reported that the Fiscalía Departamental de Rocha de 2° Turno formalised an investigation against her for continued fraud in concurrence with continued usurpation of professional title, especially aggravated theft and three counts of forgery of a private document. According to Teledoce, the absence of a valid degree was detected during the ASSE recruitment process, she never worked or treated patients in an ASSE hospital, and she is also alleged to have taken three prescription forms for controlled medicines and passed such medication to a third person. The court imposed 120 days of precautionary measures: a fixed residence, periodic appearances at a police station, a ban on leaving the country and night-time house arrest. Infobae reported the police appearances as weekly. Neither outlet names her.

The mechanism was simple. The private employer accepted a paper diploma at face value. The public employer cross-checked the affiliation number against the register, found it belonged to another person, and asked for originals the applicant could not produce. The same document, the same person, two different outcomes.

For students and families the lesson is that a diploma is only as good as the register behind it. When checking a doctor, a tutor or an agent who claims a medical qualification, ask for the registration or affiliation number and verify it on the regulator's public list, not on the certificate. Never hand your original documents to anyone who could alter and reuse them, and report a lost or stolen diploma to the issuing university at once.