Doctor impostor sentenced to 4 months

Friday, Aug. 19, 2005 | 8:58 a.m.

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- A Henderson man who passed himself off as a licensed doctor at a diagnostic center that he operated has been sentenced to four months in jail and placed on probation for four years.

District Judge Valorie Vega handed down the sentence Thursday to Andrew Michael, who pleaded guilty earlier to a felony count of attempting to practice medicine without a license.

Attorney General Brian Sandoval, whose office prosecuted the case, said Michael's "behavior was incredibly dangerous and put the health and safety of numerous Nevadans at risk."

Michael was president of Meadows Diagnostic Imaging Center and passed himself off as a surgeon and a graduate of John Hopkins University School of Medicine. Authorities said he gave medical advice to staff and patients and supervised radioactive contrast injections on MRI patients. Those injections require supervision by a licensed doctor.

The attorney general's office said Michael received a bachelor's degree from the now-defunct Hamilton University, an online school based in Wyoming. He was enrolled in St. Luke's School of Medicine, a correspondence medical school based in Liberia that has since been shut down by authorities in that African country.

Michael, 37, who will serve his four months in the Clark County Detention Center, was indicted by a Clark County grand jury in October. He was arrested in November while observing rounds in a pediatric clinic in Las Vegas.