JMC discovers doctors with fake medical specialisation degrees

AMMAN — The Jordan Medical Council (JMC) has discovered that a number of doctors are holders of fake medical specialisation degrees acquired from foreign countries.  

Speaking with The Jordan Times, JMC Secretary-General Mohammad Al Abdallat noted that this occurrence “isn’t cause for concern”, as the JMC is responsible for verifying the validity of foreign medical board certificates and will take the necessary legal steps based on its findings. 

 Maha Fakhoury, a board member at the Jordan Medical Association (JMA), said that the association will publish a list with the names of practising doctors on its website to help citizens verify that the physicians they’re dealing with are licensed in their fields. 

Until then, she urged citizens who have suspicions about any doctor they are seeing for medical care to contact the JMA. 

“The JMA has previously dealt with cases of general physicians impersonating specialists or performing specialised surgeries or procedures without having the necessary medical training,” she told The Jordan Times  

Fakhoury attributed this to gaps in oversight in the medical sector, especially when it comes to licensing, mostly due to the lack of resources. 

 She explained that the association doesn’t have the power to take punitive legal action in such cases. However, it can refer doctors who commit these crimes to a disciplinary board and notify the Health Ministry. 

The JMA is currently working on a legal amendment to regulate physicians’ specialty-based scopes of practice, specifying what they can and cannot do depending on their training.  

 “Medical specialties can overlap and this step can help prevent the likeliness of doctors performing procedures and surgeries without licence to do so,” she said, noting that this step must be accompanied by raising public awareness to ensure that people do not fall victim to these crimes. 

Fakhoury also pointed out that it is essential to institute a medical logbook to document doctors’ clinical and non-clinical training records during their residencies in a reliable and structured manner in order to determine the procedures and surgeries that they are allowed to perform.