Florida’s new surgeon general Joseph Ladapo’s resume is coming under scrutiny, the Rachel Maddow Show reports, after claims he treated COVID19 patients at UCLA Medical Center are being dismissed by people who worked at UCLA.

Maddow reports that Ladapo wrote multiple op/eds for newspapers, including one for USA Today on March 24, 2020, at the start of the pandemic, in which he claimed “I spent the past week taking care of patients with COVID-19 at UCLA’s flagship hospital…”  Scheduling records show Ladapo was not part of the team taking care of COVID patients.

“I was part of the team that was taking care of COVID-19 patients at the beginning of he pandemic and Dr. Ladapo was not par of the team.  There were two separate groups–General Medicine and ICU, plus a volunteer program–to take care of COVID-19 patients,” a hospital staffer told the program.  “Ladapo was not part of either.  It was a small group of people, a task force.  Everyone knew everyone.  He wasn’t there.”

Ladapo rose to prominence in conservative circles for being part of America’s Frontline Doctors, physicians who supported debunked and unproven treatments for COVID-19 like hydroxychloroquine.  They were promoted by Donald Trump as legitimate researchers, although few of them were virologists or infectious disease specialists.  One of the group, Stella Immanuel, claimed that the vaccine controls radio-controlled devices that can command the patient who was vaccinated.  She also claimed in different writings that women who get ovarian cysts were infected with demon sperm.

A California resident who has no connection to Florida, Ladapo made the news last week after being kicked out of a meeting with a Florida state senator for refusing to wear a mask as he was making rounds with Florida senators in order to gain senate confirmation.  The senator, a woman, noted that she had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.