Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Faked Being a Doctor For Years - The Gerald Barnbaum Story

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

Gerald Barnbaum was a conman who spent decades posing as a medical doctor despite never being one. Born in 1933 in Chicago, he was originally a licensed pharmacist, but his license was revoked. Rather than reform, Barnbaum found a new and more dangerous way to exploit the medical system: he began impersonating real physicians, using their stolen identities to practice medicine illegally.

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After three months, plan auto renews and 1299 a month, terms apply. Imagine you went to the doctor and you got an exam and afterwards you find out that your doctor wasn't a doctor at all? He was just some creep pretending to be a doctor. Now this story all starts with this guy, Gerald. And Gerald is 42 when all this starts and he's living in Illinois, working as a pharmacist. And he's, you know, he's doing well for himself. But one day in 1971, his whole life falls apart because he gets caught up in a fraud case. and the state medical board revokes his license.

So now he can no longer practice as a pharmacist. And this is devastating for Gerald, because working in the medical field is his entire personality, and he'll do whatever it takes to keep working there. So he comes up with a plan to do just that. He decides he's going to steal the identity of not another pharmacist, but of a doctor. Maybe deep down he's always wanted to be a doctor.

I don't really know. But whatever, he gets to work. He goes through a directory of doctors in California, which is a different state from where he lives. And eventually, in the directory, he spots this guy, Dr. Barnes. Dr. Barnes is a well-respected orthopedic surgeon whose first name is also Gerald, by coincidence. And Gerald, he figures, well, this will be easy. He shares a first name with the guy. Why not just steal his identity. So he does. He goes and he legally changes his last name to Barnes, so now he's the fake Dr. Gerald Barnes. Then he decides he needs the real Dr. Barnes's medical credentials. So he writes to the California Medical Board pretending to be the real Dr. Barnes. And he makes up a whole bullshit story telling them that his estranged wife had burned down their house and that the fire had destroyed

his medical license and now he needs a replacement copy for some new job he's trying to apply to. And apparently the board doesn't fact check his claims. They're just like, all right, seems legit. And they send him a copy of the real Dr. Barnes's medical license. So now Gerald, aka the fake Dr. Barnes, officially has everything he needs. So in 1976, he moves from Illinois all the way over to Southern California. And there, he starts applying to jobs using the real Dr. Barnes's credentials. And somehow, he actually gets hired. Like, he's able to bullshit his way through that interview process, and he gets a job at a medical clinic in Irvine. So he starts working there, and he's seeing patients and stuff, and a few months go by. And, like, pretty quickly, he's seeing up to

40 patients a day. And it seems like no one suspects him of being a fraud, and things are going great. Like he's back in the medical field like he wanted, he's also getting paid as much as a real doctor would. Things couldn't be going better. But then, about three years go by, and it's now 1979. And one day, a guy visits the clinic, this guy, John, and John, he sees Gerald and he's complaining of thirst and dizziness and rapid weight loss, all of which are textbook symptoms of adult onset diabetes. But see, John, he doesn't know that. yet. But you know who else doesn't know that yet? Gerald. Because of course he's not a real doctor. So Gerald, he runs a few tests on John and he's like, you're fine, just go home, get some

rest. And two days later, John unfortunately falls into a diabetic coma and he dies. Now Gerald's assistant, this guy who will just call assistant, assistant hears about John's death and he actually gets concerned that Gerald didn't spot the issues beforehand. And that makes him suspicious, and he decides to do a background check on him. And soon enough, he discovers that Gerald isn't a doctor at all. In fact, he's a complete fraud. So he reports him to police, and bam, Gerald gets arrested. And he pleads guilty to unlawful medical practice and involuntary manslaughter, and he's sentenced to three years in prison. And about a year and a half, later, he gets out on parole. And I think we're in 1982 now. So he gets out and he goes right back to

pretending to be a doctor. He applies for jobs at more clinics across California and he gets them. Until one day at one of the jobs, a receptionist at this new clinic had also worked at his old clinic. And she recognizes him right away and she tips off police and so bam. Gerald's arrested again. This time he's sentenced to over three years in prison, but again, he gets out early, this time for good behavior. And once again, he goes right back to the same act pretending to be a doctor. And he keeps working at clinics until 1989, when he gets another job at a clinic in San Bernardino County. And there, he gets caught, and bam, he gets arrested again and he goes to prison again. And by 1991, he gets out on parole, but he violates it and bam, he gets arrested again.

And after his release, he, of course, starts pretending to be a doctor again. And so he's out there looking for jobs. And somehow he keeps getting hired, moving from clinic to clinic, earning over 400 grand during this period. And almost five years go by. And it's now 1995. And Gerald gets a job as the medical director at a health care organization responsible for conducting physical exams for law enforcement officers. So his job is to perform exams and write prescriptions for hundreds of officers, including officers from the FBI and the California Highway Patrol. This guy is just asking to get caught.

Now, you might wonder how he's so good at faking all this. Like, how could a man with no medical degree interact with as many patients as he's. he does without tipping anyone off to the fact that he's not a real doctor. Well, to Gerald's credit, he actually studies. Like he attends medical conferences and he buys courses and he learns a bunch of stuff on his own. He's doing everything a real doctor would, except go to medical school. Regardless, even with all that studying, he still gets things wrong because, you know, he's not a real doctor. Like, he ends up misdiagnosing people and he'll sometimes miss-diagnosing people and he'll sometimes miss serious conditions, but whatever, he keeps doing this and he keeps getting away with it.

But then, one day, he runs into assistant, his former assistant from his old job. And assistant recognizes him immediately, and he tips off the feds, and so, bam, Gerald gets arrested yet again. And he takes a plea deal, but this time they don't go easy on him. This time he gets 12 and a half years in prison. And so now it seems like he's finally going to be locked up for a long time, and this whole pretending to be a doctor act will now finally stop. Until. Here's the thing. While in prison, Gerald keeps studying medicine.

He takes several medical courses, I assume they're correspondence courses, and three years go by. And then one day, he decides that he's studied enough and he's ready to go be a doctor again. and that he really wants to go back and work at a real hospital and work with real patients. So what does he do? Well, he comes up with a plan to escape. He's going to trick the prison into letting him go. So he puts in a request with the prison admin, and he says that he wants to transfer to another prison to take some training classes

that aren't offered at this particular prison. And since he's generally been a well-behaved inmate, the prison actually approves it. And instead of the police escorting him or transatlantic, They just give him some money and a bus ticket and they drop him off at the bus station and he's like expected to get to the other prison that way Now of course instead of getting on the bus Gerald he just Escapes like he flees and he disappears and he goes to another town where no one knows him and he goes right back to practicing medicine and Pretending to be a doctor again and about a month goes by and police finally

find him and bam, he's arrested again. Here's one of his mugshots. And ultimately, he's ordered to finish his initial sentence and also they give him 30 months on top of that for trying to starting. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer.

Time to escape.