A Florida woman, Autumn Bardisa, 29, was arrested on Tuesday (August 5) after allegedly posing as a nurse and treating over 4,000 patients without a valid license. According to the Flagler County Sheriff's Office, Bardisa worked at a local hospital from July 2023 until her termination on January 22, 2025.

Bardisa was initially hired as an advanced nurse technician, claiming to be an "education first" registered nurse, meaning she had completed the necessary schooling but had not passed the national exam to obtain her license. She later falsely claimed to have passed her exams and provided a license number that matched another individual with the same first name but a different last name. Bardisa explained this discrepancy by saying she had recently married and changed her last name, but she failed to provide a marriage license when requested by the hospital.

The deception was uncovered when Bardisa was offered a promotion, prompting a fellow employee to check her license status. It was discovered that she only held an expired certified nursing assistant license. After an internal investigation, the hospital terminated Bardisa and contacted the sheriff's office, which began its own investigation.

Officials found that the license Bardisa used belonged to someone at a different hospital who had attended school with Bardisa, though the two did not personally know each other. Bardisa now faces seven counts of practicing a healthcare profession without a license and seven counts of fraudulent use of personal identification. She is currently held at the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility on a $70,000 bond. Sheriff Rick Staly described the case as one of the most disturbing instances of medical fraud his office has ever investigated.

Michael Berry