A California anesthesiologist stands accused of blowing off a mandatory remediation program by enlisting a much younger man to pose as him in Zoom meetings, complete with hair and a mustache dyed white. The alleged imposter’s hair wasn’t fully dyed, however, and his eyebrows were black.

California state medical board officials accuse Gary Lee Greenberg, MD, of gross negligence, dishonesty, and unprofessional conduct. An unrelated court ruling says Greenberg acknowledged being terminated from several temporary hospital jobs in the 2010s.

A person who identified himself as Greenberg rejected the allegations in a brief phone conversation with Medscape Medical News.

“I can’t talk about that,” he said. “I’m denying everything. I’m sending complete documentation that they’re way off base.”

The case shines a light on the world of physician remediation, where doctors undergo mandatory training following clinical or professional lapses. While participants might not want to take part in the programs, online fakery is hardly the norm.

“That’s a new one. I thought I’d heard of everything,” said Elizabeth F. Wenghofer, PhD, professor with Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, who studies physician performance and worked with a US remediation program.

Allegations of a Run-In Prompted Remediation

The saga began, according to a March 23 accusation, when Greenberg’s then-employer, Kaweah Health Medical Center in Visalia, California, ordered him to take a remediation course in professional communications after his altercation with a colleague.

Greenberg, in 2023, called a fellow doctor names and swore at them. “Respondent…asked to go out to the parking lot to fight,” the accusation noted.

In 2024, Greenberg signed up for a “Civility and Communication in Health Care Course” with PBI Education, a physician remediation firm. The class also required an online check-in with staff via Zoom.

Remediation Staff Notices ‘Issues’ at Initial Meeting

PBI Education staff told the medical board that during the Zoom meeting:

• “The person claiming to be respondent on the Zoom call appeared to be very young despite the fact that respondent had provided demographic information stating that he was 73 years old.” (Greenberg’s California medical license was first issued in 1978.)
• “The person on Zoom representing himself as respondent appeared to have an artificially dyed white head of hair and mustache while having black eyebrows.”
• “The person on Zoom sounded very young and not like the individual who had spoken with PBI over the phone prior to registration.”
• A photo of Greenberg located online didn’t match the person on the Zoom call, nor did a copy of his driver’s license, according to the accusation.

Another Online Meeting and More Allegations

PBI Education staff met online again with the person claiming to be Greenberg, noticing that “half of the person’s hair was colored gray, and the other half was not. The imposter seemed to be speaking with someone in the room and using hand signals.”

The person also said his grandson was in the room, but no one was seen when he was asked to pan the camera around the room. Also, “the room appeared to be that of a college student.”

Threat to Sue and an Investigation

Later, the accusation said, Greenberg threatened to sue PBI Education in federal court if recordings of the meetings were shared because he had not consented to the taping. In fact, consent was required before sessions.

PBI reported the encounters to the medical board, which investigated but failed to get a response from Greenberg despite several attempts.

Now, the medical board’s staff is asking the full board to revoke or suspend Greenberg’s medical license, which expires on June 30.

Greenberg uses an address in Reno, Nevada, and he also has an active medical license in that state. It is not clear if he’s currently working as a physician in California or Nevada.

A History of Job Terminations

In an unrelated case in 2022, Greenberg lost a lawsuit on appeal in which he claimed he was wrongly fired in 2017 for unsatisfactory performance after 3 days on the job at a hospital near San Francisco.

In the ruling, by a California appeals court, a chief of anesthesiology is quoted as writing that Greenberg “lacked situational awareness in a critical situation,” lacked “visual acuity,” and wasn’t comfortable with obstetric anesthesia.

The ruling also quoted a deposition in which Greenberg testified “that in 2012, 2014, and 2017, he had temporary assignments at other hospitals…that were terminated for performance reasons.”

Inside the World of Physician Remediation

As a 2018 British report put it, physician remediation “is an intervention designed to remedy underperformance and return a doctor to safe practice.”

“Remediation programs are best at helping physicians with problems like communication skills, administrative record keeping, and lack of professionalism,” said Wenghofer in an interview.

Wenghofer co-authored a 2025 report that found US physicians required to take part in remedial continuing education as part of first-time disciplinary actions were less likely to require more discipline within 5 years than those who weren’t.

However, she said, remediation “is not particularly good for criminal activity or anything associated with boundaries like sexual misconduct or sexual assault.”

As for personal attitudes toward remediation, “they’re as varied as the physicians who participate,” she said.

When a Medical Board Doesn’t Mess Around

Several US organizations offer physician remediation services. One of them, the University of California, San Diego Physician Assessment and Clinical Education (PACE) program, assessed 867 doctors whose licenses were at stake between 1996 and 2009, according to a 2009 report.

The program continues to see about 100-150 physicians a year, said founder William Norcross, MD, who’s now retired, in an interview.

Some physicians, Norcross said, refused to take remediation seriously, although he never saw a case of an imposter over 30 years.

He recalled warning physicians who refused to take remediation seriously that the consequences of failing to cooperate would be severe: “You may lose your license if we tell them that you've behaved dishonestly.”

As he explained, a medical board can take decisive action. “I’ve seen it happen. They’ll send a police car to the doctor’s office, they’ll walk in, take the license off the wall, and walk out with it in front of patients, in front of staff, in front of everything.”

Rightly so, he said. “One thing that the medical board will not tolerate, nor should they tolerate, is dishonesty. Personal integrity and honesty are at the heart of medical practice. If you can’t trust your doctor, that’s the ball game right there.”

Wenghofer disclosed having relationships with the PACE program and agencies regarding competency assessments. Norcross reported having no disclosures.