It sounds like a bizarre episode of the 90s comedy-drama “Doogie Howser, M.D.”<\/p>\n
But this is reality. And this teen wasn’t a board-certified surgeon, but, according to police, merely someone who, through a clerical error, acquired a medical badge and spent several days posing as a doctor’s assistant and treating patients.<\/p>\n
Opening statements in the trial of 18-year-old Matthew Scheidt is scheduled to start Tuesday in a Florida courtroom.<\/p>\n
Scheidt faces two counts of impersonating a physician’s assistant and four counts of practicing medicine without a license for the days he spent at Osceola Regional Medical Center in August 2011.<\/p>\n
He was 17 at the time.<\/p>\n
After his arrest, Scheidt admitted to performing CPR on a patient suffering from a drug overdose, authorities told CNN affiliate WFTV.<\/p>\n
“I felt so uncomfortable even doing that. And, you know, the only reason why I did do it was because there was nobody else in there. And I’m not going to let her die,” Scheidt told investigators at the time, according to the television station.<\/p>\n
Scheidt told investigators he went to the hospital last year to get a badge for his job as a clerk at a doctor’s office across the street. But someone botched the paperwork.<\/p>\n
“Their error was putting me in apparently as a physician assistant into their computer,” Scheidt told investigators. “Let’s even say that I said I was a physician assistant. Let’s even say that I was. Are you that stupid that you are just going to put me in the system as that, without any credentials or any paperwork or nothing?”<\/p>\n
Prosecutors allege that Scheidt used the badge to work in the hospital for weeks in the emergency room, changing bandages, handling IVs and helping to conduct exams.<\/p>\n
During his interrogation, Scheidt confessed and admitted he had made mistakes, according to WFTV.<\/p>\n
“I messed up. I should have addressed the issue when it was given to me. I just didn’t want any questions asked, like I just wanted to learn as much as I possibly could,” he said.<\/p>\n
Osceola County Circuit Court Judge Jon Morgan said Monday he expects the trial to last three days.<\/p>\n
Scheidt has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has sought to get his confession thrown out of court.<\/p>\n
He was arrested in September 2011 and allowed to bond out.<\/p>\n
But in January, he was back in police custody.<\/p>\n
The charge: impersonating a police officer.<\/p>\n
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