Doctors struck off after helping graduates cheat on medical exams

Two doctors who helped medical graduates cheat on their entrance exams have been struck off.

Dr Elmira Yaghmaei and Dr Hamed Salehi, based in Havering East London, worked at Common Stations Limited which provided educational courses for doctors seeking GMC registration – which is needed to practise medicine in the UK.

The PLAB test is used by International Medical Graduates seeking GMC registration in the UK, to demonstrate that they have the necessary skills and knowledge.

But the pair were found to be providing an “unfair advantage” to those taking the two-part assessment.

Salehi was a director and Yaghmaei was a tutor at the company. According to a tribunal hearing, the company alleged to have elicited confidential information about the content of the PLAB part 2 exam from candidates and then used this to create and distribute teaching materials to help their students pass the test.

Salehi was found to have made posts on social media and distributed leaflets stating that Common Stations had achieved a 100 per cent pass rate in PLAB 2 which was untrue. The GMC has claimed her actions were “dishonest”.

Statements from former students on the Common Stations website and Facebook groups suggested students knew the wording of the exam and answers before going in to the exam.

One testimonial said: “All the stations were exactly word by word the same as we were taught and I already knew the diagnosis/differentials/what questions to ask etc before going into the cubical… it was like magic!!!”

“He spoon-fed all of us; he told us exactly what we needed to know for the exam,” another said.

Others also commented that they were taught “exactly what came in the exam”, adding that “this exam cannot be made any easier as Dr hamed has made it.”

Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) launched a misconduct hearing after concerns were raised following a PLAB 2 exam day on 15 February 2019 when a GMC member of staff found a folder left at the Clinical Assessment Centre.

The folder contained a large volume of information about the PLAB exam and wording within the pages claimed copyright on behalf of Common Stations, the tribunal heard.

The information was said to compromise the integrity of the examination for any candidate who had access to its contents prior to taking the PLAB 2 exam and was escalated for investigation within the GMC.

Although the GMC does not operate its own training programme for doctors taking PLAB 2 it does not take issue with responsible course providers preparing candidates to take the test, as long as the material provided does not compromise the integrity of the test.

The Tribunal heard a witness statement from the head of assessment at the GMC, who said in April 2019: “The contents are in my view clearly designed to provide candidates with information prior to the PLAB test to which they are not entitled, based on previous candidates’ experiences, in order to give them an unfair advantage. In other words it is designed to enable candidates to cheat.”

Yaghmaei stopped working for Common Stations in March 2019 when suspicions were first raised about the company.

Chloe Fairley, counsel on behalf of the GMC, said that helping students cheat by using confidential information about the content of the examination, showed a “flagrant disregard” for the professional standards under which doctors are required to operate.

She added that both Yaghmaei and Salehi should have been acting with “honesty and integrity” and not enabling PLAB candidates to cheat and that there was a risk to patient safety if doctors were not genuinely being tested.

Allegations of distributing information and teaching materials against both Yaghmaei and Salehi were proven true by the tribunal. Both doctors have been struck off the medical register as of September 30.