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Surprise, surprise. It’s so predictable with these fundamentalist, ignorant gay haters.
As you know, the Blend broke the news that NC State Senator James Forrester has been falsely touting himself as a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine. Correspondent Scott Rose’s communication with Executive Director Michael Barry (R), showed that Forrester was not a fellow and the ACPM contacted Forrester to tell him to remove the false information from sites where the lawmaker touts the designation.
Matt Comer at QNotes has found that, well, it’s probably easier to state which of Forrester’s credentials are true, since others are now up in the air.
Further reports have indicated that Forrester might also be fibbing on his association with the Aerospace Medical Association. Despite claims on his resume, Forrester’s name is not listed on a current list of group’s associate fellows.
Questions now fall on Forrester’s claim of membership in the Christian Medical and Dental Association. He lists his current membership with the organization on his resume at his personal campaign site and at a web page on the Gaston County Republican Party’s website.
Searches of the Christian medical group’s membership database returned no results for family physician and 10-term state senator. The group’s database includes practicing members who have opted to be listed. A search of doctors within a 100-mile radius of Forrester’s work address yielded no results for Forrester.
qnotes reached out to Forrester for comment and clarification on Friday morning. He was not immediately available at his legislative office in Raleigh, his Stanley, N.C., office or at home. The Christian Medical and Dental Association’s offices are closed on Fridays.
When will the leadership in the NC Senate tell Forrester that he needs to RESIGN?
7 Comments
Great job exposing this, Pam and qnotes and whomever.
But is the general press taking note? Or will major newprint and TV outlets in NC just ignore this, as the press tends to ignore most stories* that might discredit homophobic politicians?
(*Unless there’s toe-tapping or other juicy sex stories involved. Hypocrisy tends to get ignored by the media, but sex always gets attention!)
The American Medical Association’s Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs is here.
Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs
American Medical Association
515 N. State Street
Chicago, IL 60654
ceja@ama-assn.org
I suppose they can only censure Forrester if he is an American Medical Association member. (Can we presume he’s not now?)
But I suppose they could also be prompted to release a letter condemning the falsification of medical credentials. Forrester degrades the entire profession with lies. How many of us actually check the stated medical credentials of people we see for medical issues?
I tweeted to MSM outlets (incl. @maddowblog), so we’ll see if this will ever get picked up. If this had been a state senator in NY or CA, I’m sure it would be headline news by now.
…if he’s lying about his medical credentials to his constituency, is he also lying about his credentials to his patients and employer?
Gaston Memorial Hospital
2525 Court Dr
Gastonia, NC 28054
(704) 834-2000
Falsely claiming to have board certification and experience to be a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine is by no means trivial
https://acpm.site-ym.com/general/register_member_type.asp
Even Rand Paul concocted a professional board that he could be a member of.
People — both patients and the public — have a right to believe that someone who claims to be a specialist in preventive medicine knows what a/he is talking about when discussing issues of relative life span, health risk factors, and info about HIV/AIDS prevalence that are known to the educated layperson and, therefore, should be well known to someone who claims to be a specialist. And when a person fraudulently claims such expertise and spends significant effort spewing misinformation and disinformation, and just plain makes things up as s/he goes along, as part of public policy, that calls for professional sanctions. And certainly North Carolina legislators have a right — and an obligation — to feel duped, because they were.
http://jimforrester.net/about.htm
Forrester also “claims” on his personal website (which STILL has not been corrected, btw) that he has been in family practice in Stanley, NC for 46 years…
…but he retired from the Air Force with the rank of brigadier general.
If he’s 74 years old now, that would put him retiring from the Air Force at 28 years old, lol… and even MacArthur didn’t reach the rank of brigadier general until the age of 38 (youngest ever in the Army).
There’s a USAF photo of him on the website, and he’s clearly much older than 28 and he does indeed have the rank of brigadier general.
So chalk the “46 years in family practice in Stanley, NC” up as yet another falsehood this man has on his professional resume.
He might have made the rank as a doctor(I made my jump up as a lawyer), but I doubt it. I wonder if he went to medical school, and if he did, where?