Akron General Medical Center is the latest area hospital to warn that a man pretending to be a staff physician is making harassing phone calls to area residents.
The latest incident happened on Tuesday, when a 64-year-old Sagamore Hills Township woman received an early-morning call from a man claiming to work for Akron General.
The man asked the woman’s height, weight and age and then questioned when she got a mammogram and whether she gave herself breast examinations, according to a Sagamore Hills Township police report.
When the caller followed up by asking explicit questions about her anatomy, the woman responded by saying she found the conversation “unsettling,” the report stated. She hung up and notified police.
The hospital has received several other complaints about similar phone calls placed randomly to women throughout the Akron area since last year, hospital spokesman Jim Gosky said. Only some of the victims have been Akron General patients.
The calls typically are made late at night or early in the morning and show up as “private caller” on residents’ caller IDs, Gosky said. The caller often claims to be named “Dr. Franco” or “Dr. Ross.”
Hospital security investigated to confirm the calls weren’t made from Akron General, Gosky said. Hospital staff also took steps to make sure no health records were used or compromised in the cases in which the victims were patients.
“Akron General would not make calls like that,” Gosky said. “… .We want to alert the public that is not something any of our people are doing.”
Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna warned earlier this month that a man impersonating a hospital doctor has been calling residents seeking personal information.
The calls have been happening on and off for about a year, hospital spokeswoman Andrea Pettit said. Some of the calls have been “crude.”
Gosky said all calls placed from Akron General facilities will be identified as “Akron General” on caller ID. Patients can ask for a phone number and call back if they are concerned whether the call is legitimate.
“We would never ask for personal information over the phone,” he said. “It’s just not done that way.”
Cheryl Powell can be reached at 330-996-3902 or chpowell@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow Powell on Twitter at twitter.com/abjcherylpowell.