Dismissed in his sixth year, a forged 2015 certificate, a syndicate card in another doctor's name, nine years as a 'doctor': the Maadi 'chest specialist' referred to trial

Egypt is one of the largest medical-training destinations in Africa and the Middle East, and Cairo University's Qasr Al-Aini Faculty of Medicine is a name many students from Nigeria, Sudan or South Asia will hear from an agent. A doctor's standing in Egypt rests on two documents: the faculty's graduation certificate and membership of the Doctors' Syndicate, whose register of physicians can be searched online. A case reported in 2025 shows how long a person can work in private medicine when both documents are forged and nobody checks the register. Nothing in it is an allegation against Cairo University or any hospital; the facts concern one former student and the papers he is accused of producing. A separate Cairo clinic case involving a claimed Ain Shams title is recorded elsewhere on this site.

According to an investigation published by Cairo 24 on 30 May 2025, a man identified only by his initials was dismissed from Qasr Al-Aini in 2014, in his sixth year. The graduation certificate he later used, the outlet reported, claimed a June 2015 graduation and had originally been issued in a friend's name, with the name and photograph replaced. He allegedly also forged a Doctors' Syndicate membership card using a real colleague's details, an internship certificate, an Ain Shams University postgraduate statement, a master's certificate and a national identity card, and presented himself as a chest and immunology specialist holding master's and doctoral degrees.

Cairo 24 reported that he worked at several private hospitals and clinics in Greater Cairo, ran a clinic inside a hospital in Badrashin that was closed more than once for practising without authorisation, and then operated Cairo Care Hospital at 49 Corniche Al-Maadi, which the outlet said never obtained the required licences and was closed and sealed. In December 2025, Misr Connect reported that Cairo prosecutors had referred him to criminal trial after he was, in its words, "caught impersonating a doctor for nine years", with the case covering forgery, impersonation and operating an unlicensed medical facility. Prosecutors were still examining seized equipment and identifying victims, some of whom alleged they had been given excessive sedatives.

The mechanism was simple. Cairo 24 searched the Doctors' Syndicate website for the name he practised under and found nothing; the real doctor whose details appeared on the forged card is listed there as a general practitioner, not a chest specialist. One lookup would have exposed two mismatches, a missing name and a wrong speciality. A student who reached the sixth year has enough clinical vocabulary and ward experience to pass an interview, so each employer appears to have taken the card and certificates at face value. The Maadi hospital itself, Cairo 24 reported, had been closed more than once over licensing problems before it was finally sealed, so the warning signs were already on record.

For a student or family considering medicine in Egypt, or anywhere abroad, the lesson cuts both ways. A certificate, a membership card or a clinic nameplate proves nothing; the regulator's register does, and it should be checked for the doctor who signs your medical reports, the mentor who offers a paid clerkship and the hospital that offers a job after graduation. Expect your own documents to be checked the same way, so never accept papers an agent has "arranged", pay fees only to the university's own account and keep your originals. If a name is not in the register, the paperwork does not matter.