38. How Does a Violent Psychopath Become a Doctor?
Marcel Petiot might have been violent and certifiably crazy, as multiple psychiatric diagnoses declared him to be, but beneath the nuttiness, he was actually pretty intelligent. After the war, he joined an accelerated educational program, intended to benefit veterans who had spent a significant chunk of their youth in the trenches instead of in university lecture halls.
Petiot ended up completing medical school in eight months, did an internship and residency in a psychiatric hospital of all places, and in 1921, received his medical degree and license. He moved to and opened up a practice in the small town of Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, in Burgundy. From the start, Petiot was a sketchy MD. He gained a reputation for supplying illegal drugs – he was himself an addict – and performing illegal abortions. When he was not keeping office hours, Dr. Petiot kept himself occupied with stuff like petty thefts.