Hired by two hospitals on a forged licence, 336 counts of bodily harm in an earlier case: Germany's false doctors, and why the clinic kept the money

Germany's Approbation, the state licence to practise, is the document every hospital asks for, and it is the document the country's false doctors have forged.

According to beck-aktuell, in March 2025 the regional court in Osnabrück concluded the trial of a woman who had treated patients on a forged medical licence, having secured posts at two hospitals with fake credentials; the court ordered her committed to psychiatric care rather than prison. In an earlier case recorded by Rechtsdepesche and Haufe, a man who had forged all of his qualifications, obtained a licence on them and never sat a medical examination performed operations for years and was convicted of bodily harm in 336 cases, the court treating every operation by an unqualified person as an assault. The Schongau gynaecologist who failed his state exam and forged his licence is recorded separately on this site.

A detail from the Ärzte Zeitung adds the financial angle: a clinic that had employed a fake doctor was allowed to keep the reimbursement it had received for his treatments, the court finding the clinic had itself been deceived. The patients were operated on by an impostor; the system that paid for it suffered no loss; the only remedy was criminal.

For students, Germany's cases carry a specific lesson because Germany is a popular destination for foreign medical graduates seeking Approbation. The licence is granted on documents, and the authorities have learned, through these cases, to verify them with issuing universities and to require examinations where the equivalence of the degree is uncertain. A graduate of a school that is slow or unable to confirm its own degrees will wait longest and be examined hardest. Choose a school whose registrar answers.