Blood lab medical technician Sejal Rao loses registration after CV fraud
By Tracy Neal, Open Justice reporter of
When Sejal Rao applied for the lab technician job she didn't say she had used the false information to gain registration.
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123RF
A medical lab technician used false information about her abilities and qualifications to get a job with the New Zealand Blood Service and registration with the Medical Sciences Council.
Sejal Rao claimed in her CV she was a "Doctor of Medicine" and that she was involved in "Tetangata" tutoring at the University of Auckland, and later at the University of Tasmania.
She also named false referees among the seven listed, including one she made up entirely.
Rao was eventually caught out by an audit of the NZ Blood Service's online reference checking system, which flagged discrepancies in her application and an investigation followed.
Rao blamed her mother, who she said had helped her apply for the job, among a number of responses to the allegations.
The allegation against her mother formed part of one of the three comprehensive charges against Rao.
The Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal found her attempt to deflect blame on her mother was "grossly dishonest".
In June 2023, the Professional Conduct Committee appointed by the Medical Sciences Council laid three disciplinary charges against Rao for professional misconduct.
The charges were linked to her use of false information when applying for provisional registration with the council and failing to disclose that it was fraudulent.
When she applied for the lab technician job, she didn't say she had used the false information to gain registration.
The tribunal found earlier this year that the charges against Rao were proved.
Her registration has now been cancelled, she has been censured and ordered to pay $13,000 towards the costs of the disciplinary process.
Rao had earlier admitted some aspects of her CV were false or misleading, notably that she did not attend medical school at the University of Melbourne and had not studied for a medical degree.
She does, however, hold a science degree, with a major in biomedical science, after she graduated from the University of Auckland in October 2020.
The tribunal said the extent of Rao's fabrication was "somewhat inexplicable" as she was, in fact, suitably qualified to be employed as a medical lab technician, yet she kept on embellishing her CV.
A 33-page summary of facts from December 2023 showed Rao had applied for a position as a medical lab technician at the blood service before her provisional registration in June 2021.
Having accepted the offer of employment, Rao then applied to the Medical Sciences Council for provisional registration as a lab technician.
Under the heading "academic profile" in her CV, Rao claimed to be a Doctor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne from 2020-2022.
She also falsely claimed she was studying at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), for a Doctor of Medicine qualification.
The tribunal said Rao's claim she was involved in "Tetangata" tutoring seemed to reference te reo Māori, "te tangata" - the people, and "rather oddly" was referred to as part of a tutoring programme at the Australian University.
"The tutoring programme did not exist. Therefore, she had never been a te tangata tutor," the tribunal said.
The email addresses Rao provided for a professor and a doctor as referees were not valid email accounts used by those individuals, but email accounts created by her.
A named referee, "Cassidy Lawrence", was not a real person, and the email account was a fabrication, the tribunal said.
There was further fraudulent information regarding an academic transcript from the University of Tasmania and a forged signature for a Certificate of Standing from an unnamed doctor.
Rao also supplied a fabricated document from UCLA purporting to offer her a scholarship to the university.
The fraud was detected during an audit in mid-2022 of the blood service's online reference checking system, which issued a warning message. It flagged Rao, and a doctor and a professor she had named as referees, as having all used the same IP address to submit information for her job application in June 2021.
Rao was suspended from her job in June 2022, pending the final outcome of the employment investigation. A month later, she was summarily dismissed.
The tribunal considered that Rao's conduct was malpractice rather than negligence because it was "intentionally dishonest and highly unethical".
It said her "elaborate and deliberate pattern of behaviour" was a serious breach of the Code of Ethical Conduct.
In her favour was her relative youth and her self-proclaimed immaturity.
She claimed mental distress in her life as matters underpinning her conduct.
The tribunal acknowledged her co-operation with the investigation and the process that followed.
It would be for the Medical Sciences Council to consider if Rao was fit to practise, should she reapply for registration.
NZME has attempted to reach Rao via a social media channel.
*
This story originally appeared in the
New Zealand Herald
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