Dr. “Fix-a-Flat” meet Dr. “Jiffy Lube”

Don’t trust your body to just anyone. Now, that may sound like common sense, but many people, including the rich and famous, have been bilked out of their hard-earned dollars—and their health—by scam artists intent on manipulating the human desire for beauty into a personal profit.

Most recently print and television news sources have been buzzing with the story of a Miami, Florida man named Oneal Ron Morris. Morris, 30, was arrested November 18th and charged with, among other things, practicing healthcare without a license. Why? For a mere $700.00, Morris promised his female clients more shapely buttocks by performing a simple cosmetic surgery procedure. The procedure? Morris injected his victims with a cocktail of mineral oil, super glue, and Fix-a-Flat.

To add insult to injury, and as may already be obvious, Morris is not a licensed cosmetic surgeon. As a matter of fact, he is not a medical professional of any kind. He has however been bestowed with the moniker Dr. Fix-a-Flat.

But, it’s not only people who are too cash strapped to afford top-of-the-line cosmetic surgery that fall prey to fake docs like Morris. Women like Priscilla Presley, Shawn King, and Diane Richie have also been victims of charming con artists.

Several years ago, when the who’s who of Hollywood included Botox parties—gatherings during which one doctor injected several clients at a time—as a part of their repertoire, Argentinean lothario, Dr. Daniel Serrano (not licensed in the U.S.), made the rounds, injecting clients with what he said was a better-than-Botox miracle drug. What he was actually using was industrial, low-grade silicone and a drug he smuggled from his home country; a drug that has not been approved by the FDA.

Serrano, nicknamed Dr. Jiffy Lube, and Morris not only left several women with serious disfigurations, they endangered the lives of people who trusted them. The chemical concoctions they used resulted in life-threatening conditions for several individuals.

As much as it may be easy to believe that only uneducated, low-income individuals fall prey to phony docs, the reality is that anyone can become a victim. People just don’t think to verify the license credentials of their healthcare providers.

Performing a background check on anyone who provides important services has become a must. Before putting your body, your money, and your health into the hands of anyone, make sure that you have done a thorough license credentials check. Contact a qualified identify verification service to explore your options regarding background checks for healthcare providers. Your life may depend on it.

Fox News Special : Presidential Candidate Herman Cain & Sexual Harrassment

The lead story on Fox 13 Nightly News was with CEO and President of AccuScreen.com, Kevin Connell. He was interviewed about the GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain and the controversy surrounding Sexual Harassment claims made by former employees against Cain while he was with the National Restaurant Association.

For a complimentary 5 minute consult with Kevin Connell, enter your Information below!   First Name * Email * Phone  *

Join Us on November 3rd for a Free Webinar

We are inviting you to a special webinar entitled “Social Media Background Checks: The 7 Commandments of Using Facebook in the Screening Process”

Date: November 3, 2011 Thursday

Time: 2:00 PM EST until 3:00 PM EST

There have been many recent high-profile cases involving an increase in the restrictions put on Employer’s use of Social Media in Hiring and Screening, as well as Employer’s regulation and response to Employee Comments made on Social Media sites, such as Facebook. The NLRB has challenged as unlawful an employer’s discipline of an employee who made comments on a social media site. Whether you want to use sites like Facebook to screen out employees via a social media background check, or use social media sites to monitor your employee’s social media activity, discipline them for what they post, or simply maintain rules that arguably regulate employee conduct, all employers need to understand the evolving rules coming from the NLRB. Additionally, real world practical tips and insider secrets will be shared by Kevin Connell, a social media savvy background check expert. This webinar is a Pre-Approved HRCI Certified Webinar.

Register HERE for this Complimentary Webinar

AccuScreen CEO Kevin Connell Speaking at HR Florida State Convention

Employment Background Investigations, Kevin Connell, will present a session at the HR Florida State Council Conference in Orlando, Florida on Tuesday, August 30, 2011 at 11:45 am titled “Resume Fraud in Today’s Economy & Negligent Hiring”.

Join Kevin Connell to learn the types of resume fraud most common in today’s economy, as well as, the shocking cost of Employee Theft. Kevin will also present on Negligent Hiring and how HR professionals can reduce such risks.

Hurrican Irene – Lab Testing Delays

As a result of Hurricane Irene, the LabCorp Occupational Testing Services laboratory located in Raritan, NJ is currently experiencing a power outage. While the laboratory is without full power, LabCorp will reroute drug test specimens to its Research Triangle Park, NC and Southaven, MS Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) certified laboratories.

Please be aware that you may experience delays in specimen transportation in areas where flights were cancelled and roadways closed due to unsafe traveling conditions.

Due to the potential for storm-related damage on the East Coast as a result of Hurricane Irene, your lab for specimen collection may be delayed in opening or closing for the next few days. Please call us if you have any questions or concerns at 800-689-2228 ext# 1100

We apologize for any delays you may experience during the storm recovery period. Please rest assured that LabCorp’s staff is working diligently to minimize the impact of this storm upon your organization’s testing programs.

We will provide updated information as it becomes available.

Workplace Bullying – Is it Preventable?

Have you ever been confronted by a manager or coworker who consistently uses aggressive behavior against you?

Do they make you feel threatened or uncomfortable in your own work environment? Unfortunately, you could be the victim of workplace bullying. The Workplace Bullying Institute defines workplace bullying as “repeated, health-harming mistreatment of one or more persons (the targets) by one or more perpetrators that takes one or more of the following forms: verbal abuse, offensive conduct/behaviors that are threatening, humiliating or intimidating and/or work interference to prevent productivity.”

In a survey conducted by CareerBuilder.com of over 5000 full-time employees, more than one-in-four admitted to having felt bullied in the workplace. The Workplace Bullying Institute increases this statistic and reports that one-in-three or a staggering 35% of workers confess to being bullied. Like childhood bullying, the bully looks for a target that is usually in a lower or more vulnerable position. Hence, women are slightly more at risk of being bullied than men. In today’s workplace, women are often in positions less senior than men and are thus targeted as a potential victim. There is also a generational issue that can affect employees. Employees over the age of 55 and under the age of 24, due to fear of firing and lack of confidence, are subjected to more workplace bullying than those in the mid-age range.

The Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire listed five ways an employee or company should respond to workplace bully. These include:

• recognizing the bully and his/her patterns
• responding with confidence and not hesitance
• showing powerful body language
• keeping a journal of occurrences
• as the employer, cutting your losses.

Mary Lou Quinlan, CEO of Just Ask A Woman, states, “I think the best way to defuse, especially the ignorance, but even the anger, is to walk in in an atmosphere of mutual respect. At least try the, ‘I’m here to be successful, and so are you. So let’s just put it on the table, and you’re going to have to knock it off.” Bullying can cause major negative effects on specific target employees as well as the general workplace. It can cause psychological affects, absenteeism and even potential lawsuits from the bully’s victim as well as overall low morale, performance and productivity from all employees.

The severity and widespread manner of workplace bullying is appalling and companies should take steps to protect employees from this occurrence. Many have anti-bullying workshops or no-tolerance bullying policies in place but a major preventative measure can be taken in the form of pre-employment background screening. Professionals such as Accu-Screen can help protect employees by revealing resume discrepancies or past warnings a potential employee may have received by previous employers. Through a thorough and accurate background screenings, we can help companies hire safe and qualified employees. If you have questions or would like to order a background check call us today at 800-689-2228.

Background Screening your Applicants Using Google?

Background screening your applicants is a practice to ensure that you are hiring the right applicant. But are you using Google to screen? Join us on February 23rd at 2:00pm for a complimentary webinar on how to screen your applicants the right way. Click here for more information.

Upcoming Webinars

We are excited about the New Year and the webinars we have in store for you. Our goal is to provide you insight and create awareness to all your employment screening needs. Here are our next two upcoming guests.

• This month we will be hosting a webinar with Michele Stuart, Private Investigator for 18 years. She is the Owner of JAG Investigations in Arizona. Michele has made it her business to be one of the leading investigators in the country and is known extensively throughout the investigative community for her ability to find hard to obtain information.

• In February we will be hosting Mike Sankey, founder and CEO of BRB publications.
Which is a background screening publication. BRB’s books and electronic products provide in-depth profiles to over 26,000 government agencies and 3,500 record vendors that maintain, search for or retrieve public records. BRB’s products and directories are known to be kept up-to-date, comprehensive, and affordable. BRB Publications is a past recipient of the Publisher of the Year award from Quality Books and a past winner of a Product Achievement Award from the Information Industry Association.

We will be sure to notify you of these upcoming webinars, when we get closer to the dates. These will be two webinars you will not want to miss.

As a way of giving back to you our clients we host these webinars for you to stay updated and informed. If you have suggestions on topics for a webinar, please email your suggestion to Stephanie@AccuScreen.com.

Impostor Doctor Fools Colleagues, Cardiac ‘Expert’ Lacks Medical Credentials

By Marilynn Marchione THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MILWAUKEE — He seemed like Superman, able to guide jumbo jets through perilous skies and tiny tubes through blocked arteries. As a cardiologist and United Airlines captain, William Hamman taught doctors and pilots ways to keep hearts and planes from crashing.

He shared millions in grants, had university and hospital posts, and bragged of work for prestigious medical groups. An Associated Press story featured him leading a teamwork training session at an American College of Cardiology convention last spring.

But it turns out Hamman isn’t a cardiologist or even a doctor. The AP found he had no medical residency, fellowship, doctoral degree or the 15 years of clinical experience he claimed. He attended medical school for a few years, but withdrew and didn’t graduate.

His pilot qualifications do not appear to be in question — he holds the highest type of license a pilot can have, a Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said. However, United grounded him in August after his medical and doctoral degrees evaporated like contrails of the jets he flew. He resigned in June as an educator and researcher at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., after a credentials check revealed discrepancies, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Doctors who worked with the 58-year-old pilot are stunned, not just at the ruse and how long it lasted, but also because many of them valued his work and were sad to see it end.

“I was shocked to hear the news,” said Dr. W. Douglas Weaver, who was president of the cardiology group when it gave Hamman a training contract for up to $250,000 plus travel a few years ago. “He was totally dedicated to what he was doing, and there is a real need for team-based education in medicine,” said Weaver, a pilot himself from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Even after learning of Hamman’s deception, the American Medical Association was going to let him lead a seminar that had been in the works, altering his biography and switching his title from “Dr.” to “Captain” on course materials. It was canceled after top officials found out.

Now, groups that Hamman worked for are red-faced that they hadn’t checked out the tall, sandy-haired man who impressed many with his commanding manner and simple insights like not taking your eyes off a patient while talking with other team members about what to do.

“This is Your Captain Speaking: What can we learn about patient safety from the airlines?” is how his training sessions typically were billed.

Journals that printed articles listing Hamman with M.D. and Ph.D. degrees are being contacted in case they want to correct the work. Beaumont removed him from a U.S. Department of Defense medical simulation contract that a physician at the hospital had obtained.

Doctors who attended Hamman’s sessions don’t have to worry — the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education will not revoke any education credits they earned.

“That just makes the learners more of a victim,” said the council’s executive director, Dr. Murray Kopelow, adding that this is a first in his 15 years on the job. “Sounds like there’s lots of victims in this case — the learners, the accredited providers, the whole CME system.”

Hamman did not return several phone calls and e-mails seeking comment. David Nacht, an employment lawyer in Ann Arbor, Mich., acknowledged that his client did not have the medical and doctoral degrees he had claimed from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in the 1980s.

“It’s Mr. Hamman’s desire that he clear up any misconceptions about his background that he has caused. He wants to be completely straightforward about it,” Nacht said.

There is no indication Hamman ever treated a patient, though his teamwork training had him videotaping in emergency rooms and other settings where patients were being treated.

Hamman does have an associate’s degree in general aviation flight technology and a bachelor of science degree from Purdue University. He also has “type ratings” to fly half a dozen very large commercial planes, according to the FAA.

United would not discuss his job history, citing employee confidentiality. But the company confirmed that he is not currently authorized to fly. Hamman lives in Michigan and is based in Chicago.

As long ago as 1992, an FAA workshop listed Hamman as an M.D. from United’s flight center in Denver. In an interview last year with Cath Lab Digest, a publication for heart specialists, Hamman says that being a doctor may have “opened up some doors at United, and I ended up as manager of quality and risk assessment.”

In 2004, he joined Western Michigan University, a Kalamazoo school with a big aviation program in nearby Battle Creek, as co-director of its Center of Excellence for Simulation Research. In 2005, the center got a $2.8 million grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. to expand simulation training into medical settings. Matching funds from other groups brought the total to $4.2 million.

Soon Hamman was videotaping heart attack treatment drills and deconstructing what doctors did right and wrong. He spoke at Northwestern University and for the AMA and the American College of Emergency Physicians. In 2009, he joined Beaumont Hospital.

After fessing up, Hamman asked the AMA and the cardiology group to let him continue, saying, “The work is the work.”

They decided that a lie is a lie.

“He really didn’t need to be a physician to do what he was doing. He could have been successful without titling himself,” said Weaver of the cardiology college. “He made a very serious mistake.”

Join us on December 14th at 3:00pm EST.

Hosted by employment background screening services experts Kevin Connell and Larry D. Henry, they will discuss the myths and misconceptions about online employment screening, FCRA and negligent hiring.

The Webinar hosts will provide:

* Free legal advice
* Review recent case rulings
* Specific case examples of negligent hiring
* Cover laws and guidelines from both Federal and State level

They will allow a time for a question and answer session towards the end, and provide additional resources for more information on these topics.

This is not a webinar you will want to miss. Join us for “Myths & Misconceptions About Online Employment Screening, FCRA & Negligent Hiring”.

* December 14th, 2010, 3:00 – 4pm EST

Click to register

Banning Christmas Trees at Work?

Dear Friends,

I was recently a guest on Tampa Bay’s Fox News Edge last Thursday December 2, many of you contacted me after my appearance with such positive feedback, I am humbled, thank you.

As we are full swing into the Holiday Season, I thought it would be of interest to those of you who missed the interview. Especially for all of our Clients across the globe that are outside the Tampa Bay area.

I hope that you and your family have a safe & joyous holiday season!

All the Best, All the Time,

Kevin Connell

PS I just learned today that the company in question has reversed its decision; seems that one “Ebenezer Scrooge” must have seen a ghost!

Webinar -The 7 Commandments of Using Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter as part of the Screening and Hiring Process.

In a November 17th Webinar, AccuScreen.com’s CEO will reveal ” The 7 Commandments of using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter as part of the screening and hiring process.”

TAMPA, FL — The rapid rise of online social media has drastically and permanently altered the world of employment screening, and not always to the benefit of employers.

That’s the message that AccuScreen.com, an industry pioneer in employment pre-screening services, will emphasize in an upcoming webinar on the topic of online employment screening. The webinar, scheduled for 2 to 3 p.m. EST on Nov. 17, will examine potential legal issues and other concerns related to using sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as part of the employment screening process.

“More and more companies are routinely combing the Internet for information on job applicants, assuming that everything they find is fair game for consideration in the hiring process. What they often don’t realize is that the information they’re gathering may be not only completely inaccurate but also legally risky in terms of online employment screening. Our webinar is intended to help employers understand that even accurate information found online cannot always be legally used as a consideration in employment decisions,” said Kevin Connell, CEO and founder of AccuScreen.com (http://www.accuscreen.com/).

The webinar will examine several specific cases in which information posted online reflected poorly on the applicant, the applicant’s employer or both. Connell, who will present the webinar, noted that laws regarding privacy, off-work conduct and discrimination vary from state to state and are subject to change as legislatures and the legal field as a whole scramble to keep up with the challenges posed by social media technology.

“As a major provider of background check services for pre-employment screening as well as other types of screening, we at AccuScreen.com must stay on top of these issues and legal trends, keeping in mind that the situation can change without notice depending on the terms-of-use policies of sites such as Facebook and Twitter,” Connell said. “We also want employers to realize that even if they’re outsourcing their screening to a company that specializes in background check services, not all such companies are created equal. Anyone can offer online employment screening, but not everyone understands the nuances of how to go about it in a legally sound and responsible way.”

In addition to looking at specific examples of online content concerns, the webinar will address the issues of identity and authenticity related to online information. In some cases, Connell noted, a company may be faced with the challenge of “unlearning” what it finds out about an applicant if that information falls under legal protections of anti-discrimination laws.

Space is limited for the Nov. 17 webinar, titled “The 7 Commandments of using Facebook, YouTube and Twitter as part of the screening and hiring process.” Those interested can reserve a seat at http://www.accuscreen.com/media/webinars/.

Next Page »