Americus
International Diploma Mill is the Professionals Diploma Mill, (AIUB).
We fully appreciate how difficult it is for someone engaged in
their daily enterprise to stop and return to college. It is
especially difficult, if the need is in the sciences, human
services, or the allied health fields. We at AIUB know and
appreciate that it is more difficult to move to another
discipline and obtain a new Degree in programs such as
Naturopathy, Homeopathy or Oriental Medicine or advancing from
an RN to a BSN or further to Masters and Nurse Practitioner and
Masters of Public Health, while actually working in your field.
All of our distance learning, internet courses and certification
programs have you, the professional in mind. The internet is
the new paradigm in delivering excellence in education. We at
AIUB will support you in your goals regardless if those goals
are to obtain an advance degree in your present discipline, move
to a higher degree in another discipline, attain a certification
or to begin a new career. You will have all of AIUB’s
encouragement in making this happen for you. Choose your
program below, fill in the information and let’s begin
|
John Curran, who said he got the degrees through
Stephen J. Arnett of Magoffin County, treated hundreds of patients
before he was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering in connection
with his practice. Two other men, one in Nevada and one in Kentucky, who
said they got their medical educations through Arnett have been
convicted of practicing medicine without a license.
Here at USAT, we get many inquiries about a person called Dr. Stephen J.
Arnett...We need to first officially and publicly state the following :
For further clarification, please read on...the following are actual
newspaper articles recently published:
With medical credentials, it's patient beware: In Kentucky, No Agency
Oversees Online Schools' Authenticity and Graduates <http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/15651694.htm>,
Valarie Honeycutt Spears, Lexington, KY Herald-Leader, October 1, 2006.
(This is one article in the series Degrees of Harm)(<http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/special_packages/degrees_of_harm/>.)
No one knows how many "doctors" are practicing with a degree from one of
the online medical schools that Stephen J. Arnett of Falcon, Ky., has
operated or promoted over the years.
Even if someone did know, there's no agency in Kentucky that oversees
the authenticity of online degrees.
But three men who did seek medical diplomas online -- John Curran,
Andrew Michael and Larry Lammers -- have been convicted of charges
associated with practicing medicine without a license. Michael and
Lammers, who both turned up in Lexington hospitals and clinics, served
jail time. Curran was sentenced in August to 12 1/2 years in federal
prison.
Over the last decade, local, state, and federal officials have all been
aware of Arnett's medical activities, records show.
But no action was ever taken against him. Arnett has never been charged
in connection with the schools.
Todd Leatherman, the executive director of consumer protection for the
state Attorney General's office, said he was not aware of the Kentucky
connection to the three convicted men until he was contacted by the
Herald-Leader.
He acknowledged, however, that he was familiar with Arnett. Both men
served on a legislative commission to craft new alternative medicine
laws for Kentucky in 1999. That task force met 13 times...
Both Lammers and Michael were students at St. Luke School of Medicine,
an online school whose legitimacy has been questioned in the United
States and abroad. Because they said they were medical students, they
were able to observe medical procedures or work with patients in
Kentucky.
Officials at Kentucky's Board of Medical Licensure say its primary focus
is on physicians who are already licensed by the state...
For the last three years, State Rep. Susan Westrom, (D-Lexington), has
unsuccessfully introduced a bill that would make the use of bogus
credentials a Class D felony, punishable by a prison sentence of up to
five years.
"It's a no-brainer piece of legislation," Westrom said. "When you have
people who have lives in their hands and they have a diploma on the
wall, you want to be careful that they are legitimate. But people in the
general population have no idea how to go about checking credentials."
The bill has always passed the House, Westrom said, but has never been
heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee...
Related information:
Doctored Diplomas: For Some Medical Degrees, It's Log On, Pay Up--A
trail of bogus claims and life-threatening consequences <http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/15651692.htm>,
Valarie Honeycutt Spears, Lexington, KY Herald-Leader, October 1, 2006.
When prosecutors here talked about the cruelty of John E. Curran, it was
the face of Taylor Alves they saw.
Her mother as “born with wings” described the young woman, who, at 18,
was a filmmaker, photographer and model. She was also dying of ovarian
cancer.
Curran, who billed himself as a natural healer and physician, told her
he could make her healthy with a green drink, a concoction of powdered
vegetables in water. The promise of recovery led her to spend her final
weeks refusing other food.
"He did so much harm on so many levels," Rhonda Alves, Taylor's mother,
said recently. "I don't blame John Curran for Taylor dying. What I blame
John Curran for is the anguish he brought to her life."
In August, Curran, who charged most patients a standard fee of $10,000
for his treatments, was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison on charges
of wire fraud and money laundering.
Curran, 41, followed the same course of study as two men who appeared on
the Kentucky medical scene: Andrew E. Michael and Larry Lammers.
Michael was welcomed to Lexington's Central Baptist Hospital in 2003 and
briefly observed heart specialists there treating patients.
In 2004, Lammers cared for patients at several accident injury clinics
in the state. Lammers and Michael have also been convicted of practicing
medicine without a license and have received jail sentences.
Curran, Michael and Lammers all worked toward medical degrees from
online schools that were promoted from the remote mountain community of
Falcon, KY. There, sitting at a computer, was the man behind the schools
-- Stephen J. Arnett, 47, who had been a Free Will Baptist minister
before becoming involved in the medical field, court records say.
Arnett first opened several medical clinics in Eastern Kentucky, where
he worked without a license as an assistant to the very doctors he
hired. When the clinics closed, he moved on to promoting various online
schools that offered degrees in medicine and naturopathy -- a system of
healing with natural substances. The schools were neither accredited nor
licensed.
Yet the people who received degrees from the schools that Arnett
promoted opened real clinics, practiced in real offices and treated real
patients...
Arnett has been investigated by state officials for more than a decade
but never prosecuted. He has been free to open clinics, assist
physicians and place would-be doctors in hospitals and clinics...
The most prominent of the schools Arnett has been associated with is St.
Luke School of Medicine, which has had a number of incarnations. St.
Luke and its Southern Graduate Institute -- a division that focused on
naturopathy -- are central to the criminal cases against Curran, Michael
and Lammers.
Arnett was also tied to Lady Malina Memorial Medical College; the
University of Sciences, Arts and Technology, with an address on the
volcanic island of Montserrat in the Caribbean; and the Asian-American
University.
Prosecutors say that the degrees that Lammers, Curran and Michael
received while Arnett was involved with St. Luke were bogus.
St. Luke President Jerroll Dolphin, contacted in Liberia, West Africa,
said Arnett had been affiliated with the school and that, at one point,
the two planned to establish a school in Kentucky. However, when Dolphin
received calls from people he didn't know were students, he suspected
that Arnett was granting St. Luke diplomas without the appropriate
course work.
In 2003, the two men severed their relationship and Dolphin said he
revoked Arnett's honorary medical degree...
By 2002, Arnett was forming new Internet medical schools, according to
state records.
He incorporated a company called Foreign Alternative Medical Education,
as well as St. Luke School of Medicine. Both had a Falcon, Ky., address
that Arnett used.
Not long afterward, Robert Irving, a student from one of Arnett's online
schools, was warned by the state medical licensing board to close a
medical practice he had begun in Elizabethtown, according to board
documents.
Irving said he received a doctor of naturopathy degree from Southern
Graduate Institute, a division of St. Luke, in 2001. His contact was
Arnett. Irving did six-week rotations for orthopedics, physical
rehabilitation and anesthesiology at an Accident Injury Center in
Lexington where Larry Lammers worked.
In 2005, Irving said he was still studying at St. Luke and was pleased
with the education he received.
Irving, Curran, Lammers and Michael have all said they thought they were
receiving a legitimate medical education from schools Arnett was
promoting.
Michael's use of his so-called education was particularly egregious. He
practiced medicine without a license for two years in Las Vegas before
he came to Kentucky. He supervised potentially dangerous injections for
MRI patients and told patients he had trained at Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore.
Last year, when Las Vegas District Judge Valorie Vega sentenced Michael
to six months in jail, she had another way of describing the way he had
used that education:
"This was a time bomb ticking," she said.
Credentials Arnett has claimed
<http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/special_packages/degrees_of_harm/15651697.htm>,
Valarie Honeycutt Spears, Lexington, KY Herald-Leader, October 1, 2006.
Stephen J. Arnett of Magoffin County has presented himself as a man of
many degrees and titles. This is a description posted on the St. Luke
School of Medicine Web site around 2002-2003:
M.D., N.M.D. (Medical Doctor, Naturopathy Medical Doctor)
Vice president, St. Luke School of Medicine
Director, public relations, student loan programs at St. Luke
Director of alternative education and research at St. Luke
President, Southern Graduate Institute of Naturopathic Medicine,
Kentucky
Doctor of Medicine, Far Eastern University, Manila, Philippines
M.D. (M.A.), Open International University for Complementary Medicine,
Sri Lanka
Diplomat, National Board of Naturopathic Examiners
Senior Professor of Naturopathic Medicine: Alternative Medicines
Research Institute, Vancouver, B.C., Canada; Clayton College of Natural
Health, Birmingham, Alabama
Indian Board of Alternative Medicine, Calcutta, India MD (AM)
The St. Luke School of Medicine was declared to be an illegal entity
<http://www.embassyofliberia.org/news/item_a.html> by the Liberian
National Commission of Higher Education in 2004. This announcement,
posted to the Embassy of Liberia's web site, also named St. Regis
"University." See other material in this page concerning St. Luke and
St. Regis.
Med schools scrutinized: State Board Opens Investigation
<http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/15682184.htm>, Valarie Honeycutt
Spears, Lexington, KY Herald-Leader, October 5, 2006.
The Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure has opened an investigation into
whether a Magoffin County man who promoted online and foreign medical
schools has broken any state laws, C. Lloyd Vest, an attorney for the
board, said yesterday.
Stephen J. Arnett, a former tombstone salesman and Free Will Baptist
minister, promoted the St. Luke School of Medicine; an online school
based in Liberia, from an address in Falcon, a small Magoffin County
community, until 2003.
He held key titles at the school, including vice president, and helped
recruit students and place them in Kentucky hospitals and clinics...
St. Luke President Jerroll Dolphin said in a recent interview that he
stopped working with Arnett in 2003 and took away an honorary medical
degree the school had given him because he thought Arnett was giving
degrees without requiring proper course work.
Though some states have questioned the school's legitimacy, Dolphin said
St. Luke offered an intensive curriculum and was not a diploma mill -- a
school without accreditation that awards degrees for money and little
work.
Note this June 4, 2002 Internet archive
<http://web.archive.org/web/20020604045614/http://stluke.edu/graduates.html>
of the SLSOM list of graduates:
Alumni
Peter Michael Kolosky, M.D.: August 10, 2001
Laurie Ann Luisi Kolosky, M.D.: August 10, 2001
Michael Hejazi, M.D.: August 24, 2001
Mary Anthony Julve, M.D.: August 24, 2001
Astara Sunrise Burlingame, M.D.: August 24, 2001
Ilene Susan Young, M.D.: December 14, 2001
Munawar Hussain Shah, M.D.: January 4, 2002
Rita Patangia, M.D.: January 18, 2002
Recent Graduates
Stephen J. Arnett, M.D.: March 22, 2002
Brenda C. Arnett, M.D.: March 22, 2002
Herbert W. Winstead, M.D.: March 22, 2002
Edwin Muniz, M.D.: March 22, 2002
Thomas J. Mulvi, M.D.: March 22, 2002
Egbert G. Phipps, M.D.: March 22, 2002
John E. Curran, M.D.: March 22, 2002
Doctoral Candidates
David A. Belshaw: June 2002
David Karam Wade: June 2002
Antwi Boakye: July 2002
Masilamony Pauliah: July 2002
Alfred Egedovo: August 2002
A May 29, 2004 Internet archive
<http://web.archive.org/web/20040529133909/http://stluke.edu/faculty.html>
of the St. Luke School of Medicine faculty roster includes these
entries, among others: Stephen J. Arnett, M.D., N.M.D. Vice President,
St. Luke School of Medicine; Dean, Department of Natural Medicine;
Director, Public Relations, Student Loan Programs, and Director of
Alternative Education and Research
President, Southern Graduate Institute of Naturopathic Medicine,
Kentucky Doctor of Medicine, St. Luke School of Medicine
M.D. (M.A.), Open International University for Complementary Medicine,
Sri Lanka Doctor of Naturopathy (N.D.), Clayton College of Natural
Health, Birmingham, Alabama Diplomat, National Board of Naturopathic
Examiners Professor of Naturopathic Medicine: Alternative Medicines
Research Institute, Vancouver, and B.C., Canada Indian Board of
Alternative Medicine, Calcutta, India MD (AM) Jerroll B. R. Dolphin,
M.D., President of Medical School & Board Member Doctor of Medicine,
Spartan Health Sciences University, St. Lucia Doctor of Naturopathy,
Southern Graduate Institute BS Physics and Mathematics, San Jose State
University ECFMG Certified, Chief Advisory Physician, African
Development Foundation Responsible for school administration and program
development and coordination. Primary curriculum developer r for USMLE
Part 1, Part 2, and CSA examination contents.
**********************************************************************************************************************
We at USAT sincerely hope that none of our past, present or future
students will be affected by the dealings of Stephen J. Arnett. Please
consider the foregoing matter informational and intended to clarify any
confusion caused.
Please be advised that Dr. Stephen J. Arnett is no longer associated in
any way with the University of Science, Arts, and Technology,
Montserrat, or its affiliated Colleges and Schools, and is no longer
authorized to correspond or communicate on behalf of the University of
Science Arts and Technology in any form or manner, may not issue
degrees, diplomas or certificates, may not collect payments, process
student loans, or represent the University or its Colleges in any way
whatsoever. Furthermore, neither Dr. Stephen Arnett nor any or his
colleagues have ever held any shares or ownership of any part of USAT,
nor have they held academic postions or administrative posts at USAT.
All future communication should be made directly with the University at
the main number (664-491-5364), at the USA Vonage number (727-388-2687),
FAX (664-491-5362), or email: usat.edu@candw.ms. This memo is effective
immediately.
Thanks for your continued support and cooperation.
Kindest Regards,
Orien L. Tulp, Ph.D., M.D., F.A.C.N., C.N.S. President,
University of Science, Arts, and Technology, Montserrat
|