The owner of a metro Detroit sleep clinic may have some sleepless nights after we pull the covers back on his claim of being a doctor.
He also used the good names of legitimate doctors to help sell his services without their permission or knowledge.
He is Robert Rudowski, owner of Nighthawk Sleep Systems in Clinton Township. He claimed to have a PhD from Western Michigan University on is Linkedin page and his company website.
It also said Dr. Rudowski on the door of the clinic.
“I do,” he told 7 Investigator Jim Kiertzner when asked if he claimed to have a PhD.
But when we showed him the Linkedin page he told Kiertzner, "That’s not accurate. I can certainly get that fixed. I’m not representing I have a PhD."
But the exchange continued.
"That’s your page, did you set it up?"
"I did not."
"Who did?"
"A marketing guy that hasn’t worked for me in years."
"And you’ve never looked at it and gone, 'oh wait a minute that’s wrong?'"
"I really haven’t. I don’t know that I’ve logged onto that thing in years."
Western Michigan University told us he attended only a couple of years in the 1990s and was awarded no degree, no BS, also no Masters and no Doctorate.
Rudowski says he does not see any patients who come to his clinic, “What we do here is sleep testing and we do it in a professional, legal and ethical way.”
On his webpage he listed 4 testimonials from doctors - including retired physician Dr. Donald Kitain which said, “The results on both myself as a patient and my patients has been excellent.”
But Dr. Kitain says to us, “I had never heard of him or seen him before you made me aware of this. That’s just a business caught up in its own greed. I suspect he will be out of business very soon.”
After we left, the Linkedin page was taken down and his company webpage changed taking off the reference to PhD.
Rudowski sent us an email that said in part, “I am and will diligently insure all references to Night Hawk are accurately maintained going forward.”
The state says he needs only a business license, no medical license to run this clinic.
And we were not able to find out if he has a PhD.