This is a step in the employment process many overlook, and it’s one of the easiest parts of the selection process. Some time ago, Ed Bradley did a segment on 60 Minutes called “Unmasked.” Here’s what it said: “The next time you or someone you know checks into a hospital to have major surgery, there’s a good chance the people behind the surgical masks taking part in the operation will not have a medical license. Yet that won’t stop these ‘surgical assistants,’ as they are called, from doing many of the same things that a licensed surgeon does in millions of complex operations each year…. We found that, in a lot of hospitals, there’s little or no checking of their credentials. And what’s more, some of them actually pretend that they are doctors and bill the patients at doctors’ rates, when, in fact, they have never had a license to practice medicine.”
Why aren’t they verifying medical licenses? According to 60 Minutes, surgeons and hospital administrators say they’re too busy. The truth of the matter is, verifying any type of license – from the one required to practice medicine to the one required to fly a plane – is no more than a quick phone call away! All it takes is a call to the state licensing board that issues the license to verify whether or not the individual actually has the license claimed!