IN AN unprecedented move the Scottish Office yesterday froze funding
of a research award after the resignation of the key holder.
Professor Penny Prophit resigned in disgrace from the chair of nursing
studies at Edinburgh University after an investigation into claims she
had a PhD which she did not possess.
Last December the Scottish Office awarded her and two research
associates a grant of up to #633,000 to audit nursing practice and
standards throughout the country.
A Scottish Office spokesman said the two associates had quit the
project before the departure of the professor, a Franciscan nun from
Louisiana.
''They have been replaced by senior nurses from the NHS in Scotland.
This is a very important project and we have been making efforts since
last month to rescue it. Very little of the allocation has actually been
spent.''
The project has been taken over by Elizabeth McLean, Lothian's chief
nursing officer; assisted by Evelyn Hastings, chief nursing officer for
Lanarkshire; and Janet Roy, director of nursing services at Ninewells,
Dundee.
She was appointed director of the nursing studies research unit at
Edinburgh in 1983.
Professor Prophit, 53, resigned ''for personal reasons'', a university
spokesman said.
''Quite recently it was put to the university by an independent source
that Penny Prophit was claiming a PhD from the Catholic University of
America which she did not, in fact, possess,'' he said.
''This was investigated by the university and the matter was then
raised with Penny Prophit. Shortly afterwards, last month, she submitted
her resignation for personal reaons.''
In September, Edinburgh geriatrician and novelist Colin Douglas wrote
about bogus academic qualifications from American and European
universities in his column in the British Medical Journal.
Last night he confirmed he had made inquiries in Washington about
Professor Prophit. ''I had concerns about an earlier unproductive 'care
of the elderly' research project. There were things I did not understand
about this major nursing audit award and I checked up on some of the
people involved,'' he said.
Professor Prophit's entry in Who's Who refers to a PhD qualification
from the Catholic University of America and her appointments as a former
Mental Welfare Commissioner for Scotland and consultant to the World
Health Organisation.
She has several qualifications which are not in question: a bachelor
and masters nursing degree and a doctorate in nursing science.
In a news release on her appointment to the UK Central Council for
Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting, she also claimed a PhD in
counselling psychology.
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