Being a physician's assistant seems like a great job, doesn't it? Except for all that pesky "learning" and "certification" you have to go through. Bo-ring! Seventeen-year-old Matthew Scheidt figured out a better system: Just pretend to be a P.A. and people will believe you!

Scheidt, who'd worked at Osceola Regional Medical Center as a part-time billing clerk, obtained an ID by telling hospital workers he was "a physician's assistant in a program at Nova Southeastern University," and that the surgical group he was working for had changed its name. Seems like he had a grand old time!

While working in the busy emergency room, Scheidt performed CPR on a patient in cardiac arrest, performed physical examinations and other forms of care to an undisclosed number of unsuspecting patients, an arrest report said.

[...]

Scheidt returned at least twice to request a full-access badge that would let him use the doctors' lounge as well as restricted areas of the hospital, according to the report.

At various times, the teenager bragged that his mother was an executive with the HCA Healthcare System, which owns the hospital, and that he worked in the operating room as an assistant to Dr. Ramirez of Osceola Surgical Associates, the report said.

The hospital eventually got wise, and when confronted, Scheidt claimed that he was a cop working on a "top secret" undercover investigation in the emergency room. The cops did not so much agree, and arrested him on Friday. He was probably familiar to them: Scheidt was apparently "bounced" from the county sheriff's Explorer program for "repeatedly wearing equipment that might mislead the public into believing he was a deputy."

[Orlando Sentinel]