Addendum, September 18, 2023
After the circulation of reports that I fraudulently claimed a PhD in interviews and publications, I would like to clarify the public statement that I posted online on August 13: I have never intended to represent myself as having completed my delayed PhD and have never intended to mislead or deceive others on this matter.
I posted an apology for a carelessly worded bio on my personal website in Spring 2021. This was an attempt to defuse how, at a pivotal political moment just after news broke of the dismissal of Chicago’s former Commissioner of Public Health, accusations on social media against me––motivated by the incorrect belief that I was seeking and slated to be named to this position––were being used to attack the Treatment Not Trauma policy with which I am associated and the Mayor’s approach to rebuilding public systems for public health in Chicago. Given urgent practical concerns for unfolding political events in Chicago, I thought it best not to insist on defending myself against false accusations, which I anticipated would provoke ongoing politically unhelpful attention on me, but to instead simply apologize and remove myself from any public focus until after the next Commissioner could be chosen and appointed. Although this defused disingenuous attacks on our policy agenda, it led to widespread circulation of damaging falsehoods about me. I have refrained until now from further public engagement in order to avoid fueling further attacks that would distract from and harm the policy work being done. Now that time has passed and this work is no longer at risk, I am writing to correct inaccurate impression that I conceded to an ethical lapse or to the accusation that I lied about my credentials.
The issue in question is a sentence on my personal website that was a conditional statement: "[I am] an incoming resident in the Physician Scientist Training Program at Northwestern University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, following completion of PhD in Anthropology at Harvard University and MD at The University of Chicago.” This was added in Spring 2021 just after I learned where I matched for residency to begin that summer and before I had completed either my MD or PhD. At that time, I fully expected to complete both degrees before beginning residency, and I planned to then begin residency after having done so. This is what I believed that sentence meant and it had not occurred to me until these recent accusations that it could be interpreted as a statement of having already completed these degrees. Putting "MD-PhD Anthropologist" in the website header was, in retrospect, a careless choice but also entailed no intent to deceive. Written at a time before there was any public interest in me or my credentials, it reflects a colloquial way of referring to oneself in my training track and was paired with the subsequent clarifying sentence that appeared immediately below it. It was not intended to convey to others that I had either degree in hand already. This is consistent with the fact that no publication, bio, grant application, contract, nor CV I have ever written––either around this time or after––has ever included a claim of holding a PhD. Any mention of a PhD at all was removed from my website a few months later by the end of Summer 2021 when it became clear I would not complete the PhD degree on the anticipated timeline.
Public Statement, August 13, 2023
I am writing to publicly apologize for misrepresenting the completion of a PhD on my personal website for a period in Summer 2021.
At that time, after nearly a decade of working towards it, I expected to complete my then-already-delayed PhD before I began a medical residency. This delay was a source of frustration for me and arose because, in Spring 2020, I abruptly shifted my focus to applied pandemic-related research on Covid outbreaks in jails rather than complete the final section of my dissertation as planned. In anticipation of completing the degree in Summer 2021, during a period before I had any substantial public presence and in which I did not anticipate that any public interest in me would later arise, I revised my personal site and Twitter bio, using ambiguous language [see Addendum above] on the personal site along with a header that indicated I had gained the PhD. That was wrong for me to do and I bear full responsibility for it. After the PhD defense didn't happen because completing my last epidemiological study on Covid in jails swallowed my available time before I began full-time clinical work, I removed those references to a PhD.
I did not recall having put that on my personal site two years ago when recently responding to accusations of fraud earlier this week after MedPage Today posted an interview with me in which they indicated, without consulting me, that I had both an MD and PhD. I therefore made incorrect claims about the history of my personal site's content. I am deeply embarrassed by this. I did not intend to mislead people (a Harvard Anthropology PhD completion is readily verifiable on their website) and have made no secret of my delayed PhD completion. None of my publications include a PhD in degrees listed. No job nor grant application, CV, byline, nor bio I have sent has claimed it. And I have routinely told journalists during interviews that I don't yet have the PhD and have corrected journalists when it has been inappropriately ascribed.
Talk/panel organizers have on a handful of occasions inserted degrees into the bios I have sent them and published them on fliers/online without my prior knowledge. I have not told any of them that I have a PhD, but I should have more aggressively sought corrections to those erroneous materials and I apologize for not having done so in a more diligent manner. The Chicago movement coalition with which I've worked and the Mayor's Office have also been aware since my first collaborations with them that I have only an MD degree and no PhD, as is reflected in the MD alone following my name in the press releases reflecting my transition subcommittee appointment and in the movement policy documents I have helped draft (with colleagues with whom it has been my greatest privilege to date to work in solidarity). The erroneous ascription of a PhD had also long been on my residency program site, presumably because I applied to residency as an MD-PhD candidate and almost all such applicants finish their PhDs before beginning residency. My program has known of my delayed PhD completion since the outset of my time there, but this error on the program website that I do not control was not corrected until public accusations against me this week led my program director to kindly see to it that it was.
On a psychoanalytic institute website, there was also an inappropriate ascription of a PhD of which I have been made aware and have requested be corrected; in that case also, I have never told them I had a PhD and the information they posted is based on an application many years ago when I was an MD-PhD candidate and years removed from expecting completion of the PhD. (It appears they customarily list degree candidates with their anticipated degrees next to their names, as this is the case for other people listed on that site as well––none of whom do I suspect have misrepresented their degrees to the institute. They have now corrected this.)
I have also now learned of a new accusation that I have falsely claimed a role at the World Bank Research Group. This is not true. The accusation is that I claimed to be the Lead of the Data and Evidence for Justice Reform (DE JURE) program. I have never claimed that. Following instructions from the actual head of the program, I identified myself as Lead Health Researcher/Lead Health and Justice Systems Researcher. Following the publication of a popular article with a byline that referenced my WBRG role that drew the attention of senior leadership at The World Bank, my supervisor was informed that “Lead Researcher” is a title reserved for salaried staff employees of the Bank and not people on consultant-based research contracts like my own––an arrangement that is very common among researchers at WBRG. I was subsequently instructed to change my title to a Principal Investigator, as that was compatible with my specific contracted role, and I did as instructed. I have since maintained a collaborative relationship with DE JURE and have never misrepresented my role there nor my degree status to them. In response to the accusation made against me, the Lead of DE JURE has posted a comment reflective of my statements above.
In an attempt to be as honest, forthright, and thorough as possible in recognition of the seriousness of the accusations that have been made against me, this letter may feature excessive detail in its attempt to respond to each claim of which I am aware. Although I do not believe any of the above is directly related to instances over the last several months in which––to my knowledge––one journalist, one student conference, and an online AMA panel have incorrectly ascribed a PhD to me, including in the latter two cases after I had sent requested bios/credentials in which I did not include any claim of holding a PhD (the first instance didn’t include request for a bio/identifiers), I want to acknowledge that my revision to my website and Twitter bio in Summer 2021 in anticipation of completing the degree was wrong and represents a lapse in judgment.
I believe that truthfulness and accuracy are important for effectively advancing our goals of rebuilding public care systems and that accountability is appropriate and essential for effective solidarity-building. I am grateful to movement organizers in Chicago who have generously reached out to me in support and encouraged me to publicly engage on this matter and to continue in our shared work for our communities. My hope is that I will be able to remain useful to that ongoing work.
Last, much of this criticism appears to have surfaced now in relation to a report published in the Chicago Tribune that I have been under consideration by the Mayor’s Office for Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health. This is not a subject on which I have been free to publicly comment for a variety of reasons, but I can say that I have not––to my knowledge––been under formal consideration for CDPH Commissioner by the Mayor’s Office at any point in time and have in fact been actively engaged for several months in efforts to recruit others who I believe would be more effective in the position. I continue to believe that this moment represents a critical opportunity for the reconstruction of effective public health systems under a historically progressive administration in the wake of the undeniable failure of the status quo of public health policy in Chicago and across the United States. I am hopeful that the City will be able to secure a Commissioner who can realize the most ambitious reorientation and expansion of CDPH possible and who will be dedicated to building out a sorely needed and truly public community mental health system for our neighborhoods.
-Eric Reinhart