USYD Cheating Scandal Claims Med Students Forged Records, ‘Interviewed’ Dead Patients


The University of Sydney is currently undergoing an investigation into cheating at its prestigious medical school, with claims of up to 70 students—among a cohort of 200—forged records, falsified patient identities and even “interviewed” the deceased, according to a Sydney Morning Herald exclusive today.

As part of a program where students are tasked with monitoring a real patient with a chronic illness over a year—visiting the person at least five times while doing so—some students allegedly falsified their assignment’s records. In one case, the University attempted to contact a student’s patient, but discovered that the patient was not alive. 

Today, a student told SMH that dishonest measures were taken by some students whose patients had died during their year-long program – in order to avoid repeating the unit:

“Some students got into a situation where their patients died several months into the follow-up and it was nearly impossible for the student to pass.”

The University of Sydney will be reviewing the subject and its means of assessment, SMH reports this afternoon. 

According to SMH, the university did not strip those involved in the scandal of their credentials related to the subject where cheating took place; a task given to “reflect” on academic dishonesty was instead issued to students.

Seeing as over a third of the cohort were caught in the cheating scandal, it’s fair to say that not all students involved are soon to be the Doctor Leo Spacemans of the medical world, as University of Sydney claimed that many cases involved only “minor” errors related to the University’s dishonesty and plagiarism act. 

Today’s news does, however, follow an unrelated academic cheating scandal which involved University of Sydney students. Last year, mass plagiarism and the buying of assignments was exposed by The Sydney Morning Herald, with students from major universities in NSW caught using the now-defunct website, ‘MyMaster’.

Last month, Macquarie University took action against students caught using MyMaster, revoking the degrees of some graduates, and nullifying credit points for subjects where students plagiarised. 

Via SMH.

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