JEDDAH — The authority that accredits medical professionals in the Kingdom has disqualified 13 Saudi doctors who had obtained their medical degrees from universities in Ukraine.
Dr. Hani Baghawi said he studied medicine on scholarship in Ukraine. “My scholarship was accepted by the Ministry of Education then. However, when I finished my bachelor’s degree in medicine four years ago and came back to the Kingdom, the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties did not recognize my degree,” said Baghawi.
He said 12 of his colleagues who studied in three different universities in Ukraine faced the same predicament. “We all studied medicine and surgery in Ukraine. During the fourth year of study, the Ministry of Education discredited our universities. The ministry informed us that we can continue our studies at the same universities until we finish our course,” said Baghawi.
He said they asked the ministry to accredit their degrees, but the ministry said there was no need for any accreditation and their grades would suffice.
“When we applied for license from the commission, they rejected our application claiming our degrees were not accredited. We have contacted the ministry again and it has been four years now and we are still waiting for a decision. Our degrees are not recognized. All years we spent abroad have gone into waste,” said Baghawi.
He said he graduated in 2011 and he has been unemployed since then. “My last year in medicine was spent in Taif University. We are asking for one of the two sides, the ministry or the commission, to accredit our degrees and allow us to practice. We have not broken any regulations and our records are clean. We have the right to practice our profession and the predicament we are in is created unnecessarily,” said Baghawi.