📰 From the news · Impersonating a real college/agent
Calls to patients about their own confidential records, then a bill for the "consultation": the self-styled cardiothoracic surgeon charged in Trinidad
Trinidad and Tobago's regional health authorities hold patients' records, and in 2025 one of them found those records being used as a sales list.
According to the Jamaica Observer and the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation, an investigation began in January 2025 after a report by the Eastern Regional Health Authority that a man named Malchan had been contacting the authority's patients, discussing their confidential medical records with them and then asking for payment for the "consultations". Enquiries at the Medical Board of Trinidad and Tobago established that he was not registered as a medical practitioner at all, and was not registered in cardiovascular disease, thoracic surgery or cardiothoracic surgery, the specialties he had been advertising. He was charged in November 2025. He is entitled to the presumption of innocence. The Gleaner had reported in August 2024 on wider concern in Trinidad and Tobago about fake medical practitioners, and the Medical Board's calls for the public to verify registration.
Two features make this case unusual and instructive. The first is the data. The accused did not need a clinic or a white coat; he needed patient records, and the calls he made carried the authority of someone who already knew the patient's diagnosis. The second is the specialty. Cardiothoracic surgery is not a field in which a patient can easily judge competence, and a confident caller with a title and a file could invent a treatment plan and a fee.
For students and families the case is a small, sharp lesson about verification in reverse. Every regulator on this site keeps a public register, and it is as useful for checking the person who calls you as for checking the college you apply to. A "doctor" who contacts you unprompted, knows things about you and wants money is a pattern, not a service. The Medical Board's register would have answered the question in a minute; the authority's patients answered the phone instead.
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.