The Medical Council of Thailand is moving to charge embattled senator Keskamol Pleansamai for claiming to be a skin and beauty specialist without certification.
At a meeting on July 12, the council’s board determined that Dr Keskamol had violated Section 32 of the Medical Professions Act for publicly describing herself as a skincare specialist without being certified, according to a source familiar with the case.
Dr Ittaporn Kanacharoen, the council’s secretary-general, was assigned to look into Dr Keskamol’s claims, and whether or not they constitute an ethical violation under council regulations.
The board will discuss the matter on Aug 8.
According to a post by Dr Ittaporn on Facebook on Thursday, out of the 76,000 doctors in the country, 40,000 are certified specialists in various fields.
Those who graduated with a medical degree are considered general practitioners, and cannot claim any specialist distinction without further certification by the relevant authorities.
Under Section 44 of the Medical Professions Act, doctors who falsely claim to be a specialist in a particular field face up to a year in prison and a 10,000-baht fine. The council will also revoke their licences, he wrote.
Dr Keskamol, 46, holds a medical degree from Rangsit University, one of the few items in her CV that has been verified. Her other claims of multiple graduate degrees and a professorship have come under daily attack by social media sleuths.
Her claim of a PhD from California University Foreign Credentials Evaluation (FCE) Institution, which only issues certificates, has been especially well documented.
The owner of four beauty clinics with a large online following, Dr Keskamol said earlier that when she ran for the Senate, she chose to compete in the Freelance Workers group, rather than the Public Health group because the latter featured many well-known people.
Meanwhile, her lawyer, Decha Kittiwittayanan, has responded to the accusations that the senator faked her education profile.
He said Dr Keskamol is a doctoral candidate at Maejo University in Chiang Mai, adding that she never claimed to have graduated.
Maejo University confirmed that she was registered in the three-year doctoral programme in the Faculty of Agricultural Production and is now a second-year student.
Mr Deja blamed the media for inaccurately reporting her profile.
As for claims that she misled the public into believing she was a student at the National Institute of Development Administration (Nida), Mr Decha said his client was visiting the institute as a part of her doctoral research programme.