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Andrew Michael was an imposter on a grand scale for years in Las Vegas — posing as a lawyer, a commercial jet pilot and a nursing student.
In 2003, he was in Lexington, pursuing a new profession as a medical student at St. Luke School of Medicine, an online medical and naturopathy school with operations in Liberia, but no U.S. accreditation.
Michael — whose deceit has been compared by investigators to that of Frank Abagnale Jr., the man portrayed in the movie Catch Me if You Can -- even ran for a seat in the Nevada legislature.
But, in his most disturbing move, he practiced medicine without a license in Las Vegas for two years before coming to Kentucky, said Gerald J. Gardner, Nevada's chief deputy attorney general.
While posing as a doctor there, Michael, 38, gave medical advice and supervised potentially dangerous radioactive injections for MRI patients. He told people that he had completed a residency in cardiothoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and trained at several medical schools, according to a court affidavit.
He never attended Johns Hopkins or any other medical school.
At about the time his employees in Nevada began to doubt that he was really a doctor, Michael became a student at an Internet medical school promoted by Stephen J. Arnett from the tiny town of Falcon, Ky. Arnett arranged Michael's placement with Lexington doctors.
In 2003, Arnett sent Michael to Lexington to observe at Central Baptist Hospital as part of his training. One of the heart specialists he observed was Dr. Hal Skinner. Arnett and Skinner knew each other because Arnett had once rented office space to Skinner at an Eastern Kentucky medical clinic.
Ruth Ann Childers, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said it was not unusual at the time for physicians to allow students from foreign medical schools to observe.
Dr. Robert Mitchell, a heart surgeon at Central Baptist, said he allowed Michael to observe him for four days as a favor to another doctor.
"He was not allowed to participate in surgery other than to observe," Mitchell said. From the first day of the rotation, Mitchell said he could see that Michael had far less knowledge than most medical students. The doctor sent Michael to the library to study, and told hospital officials about his concerns.
Then word came that Michael had been indicted in Nevada.
"He might have been able to fool people in Nevada, but he didn't fool anybody in Kentucky," said Mitchell.
But Central Baptist officials were still shocked to find that there might be a problem with St. Luke.
Dr. Jerroll Dolphin, president of St. Luke, had visited the hospital and taken up residence in Lexington for three months. St. Luke didn't appear to be any different than any other foreign medical school, Mitchell said.
Although Michael's criminal charges had nothing to do with his activities in Lexington, Central Baptist changed its rules. It now allows only medical students from the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville and Pikeville College School of Osteopathic Medicine.
Michael treated no patients at Central Baptist and did not have access to patient records, according to Childers. No patients were affected in any way, she said, and Michael spent a total of only five days at the hospital.
"There's no evidence that he did anything improper" in Lexington, she said.
But, in Nevada, "Mr. Michael's behavior was incredibly dangerous and put the health and safety of numerous Nevadans at risk," said Attorney General Brian Sandoval.
Arnett and Dolphin
Arnett, who'd referred Michael to Central Baptist, had himself received a "medical degree" from St. Luke, promoted the school and was listed at one point as its vice president. Arnett declined to comment or respond to questions for this article. The man he said was his attorney did not return telephone calls.
Dolphin said that Arnett did arrange clinical rotations in Kentucky for St. Luke students, and was very helpful. However, at some point, "we suspected that he was issuing diplomas in the name of St. Luke ... without authority," he said. "We severed our relationship with him," Dolphin said, and withdrew Arnett's "honorary degree" from the school.
