📰 From the news · Impersonating a real college/agent
NT$80 for a day's medicine, a junior-high education and NT$2.52 million forfeited: the Lukang 'Dr Hsu' who practised from 1983 until a December 2023 raid
Taiwan licenses its doctors under the Physicians Act. Article 28, as the Central News Agency (CNA) noted when reporting this case, punishes unlicensed practice with six months to five years in prison and a fine of NT$300,000 to NT$1.5 million. The case shows how long an unlicensed practitioner can survive when nobody asks to see a licence.
According to CNA, Changhua prosecutors announced on 19 February 2024 that they had indicted a 69-year-old man surnamed Hsu under the Physicians Act. He had finished junior high school, had never sat the physicians' examination and held no licence, yet from 1983 he intermittently ran a clinic from a house in Lukang as 'Dr Hsu', consulting, prescribing, dispensing medicines and giving injections. The Liberty Times reported that the house carried no sign but had an examination chair inside the entrance, and that he charged NT$80 for a day's medicine and NT$100 to NT$150 for an injection. Prosecutors put his takings at about NT$2.52 million. Taiwan News, reporting the indictment in English on 20 February, gave NT$2.4 million and described him as educated to high-school level.
CNA reported that on 21 December 2023 prosecutors, the Lukang police precinct and the Changhua County Health Bureau searched the premises and seized drugs, needles, account books and records. The accused said six years as a clinic assistant had taught him enough to write prescriptions, Taiwan News reported. Prosecutors said minor illnesses had become serious and serious ones terminal because patients delayed seeing a trained professional, and asked the court to refuse a suspended sentence. On 8 July 2024 the Liberty Times reported the verdict: one year and six months, suspended for four years on condition that he pay NT$300,000 to the treasury and attend two legal-education sessions, with about NT$2.52 million ordered forfeited.
The appearance of medicine is easy to copy. A consulting chair, a prescription and a stock of medicines look the same whether or not the person behind the desk holds a licence, and six years watching a real doctor was enough to learn the routine. What ended the practice was not a patient's suspicion but a tip-off and a regulator checking the one thing patients had never checked: whether he was licensed at all.
For a family choosing a doctor abroad, or a student checking an agent who calls himself a doctor, the lesson is the same. Years in business are not a qualification. Ask for the licence or registration number and confirm it with the medical council or health authority of the country concerned, and confirm any college place with the institution's own admissions office before paying anyone. Similar fake-doctor cases from Thailand, Japan and Malaysia are recorded elsewhere on this site.
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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.