Fake Charles University diplomas submitted to become a specialist cardiologist: the Irish Medical Council finding against a doctor who had worked at four Dublin hospitals

In June 2025 a fitness-to-practise inquiry of the Irish Medical Council found that a doctor had tried to move from the general division of the register to the specialist division using forged diplomas.

According to the Irish Times, Dr Amir Taherzadeh submitted documents in 2022 claiming a specialist qualification in cardiology from Charles University in Prague. The inquiry found the diplomas were false and his conduct "disgraceful and dishonourable". His CV listed previous posts at St James's Hospital, the Mater, the Blackrock Clinic and, until about three years before the hearing, St Vincent's University and Private Hospital. The inquiry heard that had the application succeeded there was "a very high likelihood of patients coming to harm" and that it "could well" have led to deaths.

The case is unusual in that the person was a doctor, already on the register, and the forgery concerned the next rung. It belongs here because of what the council did: it did not accept the diploma, it verified it with the issuing university, and the forgery failed at that step. That is what source verification looks like when a regulator does it properly, and it is why so many of the cases on this site end at the point where someone finally writes to the university rather than reading the certificate.

For a student, the Irish example also shows the value of a university that answers verification requests. A degree from an institution that cannot or will not confirm its own graduates to a foreign regulator is, for licensing purposes, close to worthless, however real the campus. Before enrolling anywhere abroad, ask how the school handles verification requests from the medical council of the country you intend to work in, and whether it is listed in the directories those councils actually use.