Beware of Dr. Kamol Panritum of the MtF Aesthetic Surgery Center of Bangkok, Thailand
Beware of: Dr. Kamol Panritum of the MtF Aesthetic Surgery Center of Bangkok, Thailand!
Please see below letter I have sent to the United States Embassy in Bangkok. Thailand, about how Dr. Kamol has scarred and mutilated my face.
To the American Embassy, U.S. Citizen's Services:
As an individual, my circumstances, and/or opinion may not be of any significance. But, I feel compelled to help guard my fellow Americans from the harmful experiences I was forced to endure as a medical tourist to Thailand from the United States.
Over a year ago, I dropped by the United States Embassy in Bangkok, to pick up a copy of the list of Attorneys that it compiles for Americans in Thailand seeking legal assistance. My reasons for doing so, had to do with me attempting to file a medical malpractice complaint against a Thai plastic surgeon that had badly scarred, mutilated, and disfigured my face. Please see the following brief description of this experience:
As an American, I have been scared, mutilated, and disfigured by offshore plastic surgery in Thailand. I traveled to Thailand for plastic-reconstructive surgery because it was too expensive in the United States, and American insurance companies would not cover the cost of the procedure because they viewed it as an elective surgery. Before going to Thailand, I did months of research on Thai doctors and hospitals in my price range, and thought I had made the right decision until after the surgery, when my doctor (Dr. Kamol Panritum of the MtF Aesthetic Surgery Center) took off the bandages from my face.
Unfortunately, this was only the beginning of my Thailand nightmare. After the doctor refused to refund my money, or pay to have the damage he had done to my face fixed by another doctor, or do the surgery over again himself; I attempted to report the doctor to government and professional medical associations to no avail. I was completely ignored by the Medical Council of Thailand, the Royal College of Surgeons of Thailand, and the Medical Association of Thailand. I wrote a formal complaint to the hospital (Piyavate Hospital of Bangkok) where the surgery was performed, and it was ignored. The doctor had falsely claimed in his Internet advertising to be associated with Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok, the only American accredited hospital in Thailand.
Even the attorney I attempted to hire, just gave me a run around for several weeks promising to take action against the doctor and never doing so. He initially was very eager to take my case, but shortly after doing so, he not only lost interest in the case, but also became an apologist for the doctor. This appeared to have everything to do with me being a foreigner, attempting to take legal action against a wealthy and influential Thai plastic surgeon.
I later discovered that there are extremely few successful medical malpractice cases against medical doctors in Thailand that result in a cash award. Currently, there are only about 60 outstanding medical malpractice cases on file with the Medical Council of Thailand for the entire country, and this number of cases is being pointed to by Thai Medical Council authorities as being unacceptably large.
It appears that if something goes wrong with a medical procedure in Thailand, and you are a foreigner, you have few, if any options of redress, and are completely at the mercy of the doctor. Thai attorneys will gladly take your case; and certainly your money, but what is uncertain, is if they will do anything more than take your money. These attorneys certainly must be aware of how few of these cases ever succeed, but there are many attorneys in Thailand that claim they do medical malpractice work.
Medical tourism is rapidly becoming more popular in America, and more Americans are traveling to Thailand to seek potentially dangerous, and risky medical procedures. I, as an American medical tourist to Thailand, am one of many Americans that have chosen this option, and the numbers are growing very rapidly. It seems to me, that the American Embassy should take a more proactive posture, in guarding, protecting, and informing its people of the very real dangers in seeking complicated medical procedure in Thailand, and of the truth about the practical limits to legal redress, if something goes wrong.
If the United States Embassy can publish alerts, warnings, and advice on teaching English in Thailand on its website, it certainly could do a better job addressing the dangers of Medical Tourism in Thailand. Further, the Thai government should be made aware of the increase concern that the United States government has about the exposure of its citizens to the dangers and limitations of Thai medical practice, and the limits of the legal system in Thailand to redress issues of medical malpractice. Americans are being harmed at ever increasing numbers.
If you have any information concerning private and government organizations in Thailand that I should contact in my attempt to hold this doctor accountable for the damage he has done to my face and life, I would much appreciate it. Please respond to this E-mail as soon as possible, by writing me at: Heather@yahoo.com. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Heather Tascal
Sex change doctors that advertise on the world wide web, should be held accountable for their claims, and for the quality of care they provide their web clientele, by the existence of a consumer protection type of website, strictly devoted to rating these doctors.
Many of these doctors, practice medicine in under developed, third world countries where there are no real consumer protection, or medical malpractice laws to protect, particularly, international medical patients, from harm done by medical malpractice, or false and misleading advertisements. This does not speak to the issues of the endemic corruption problems within the health care profession in many of these countries such as Thailand.
Further, many of these plastic surgeons are practicing medicine in countries where the state of medical care, and particularly cosmetic surgery is very poor. For example, plastic surgery is rapidly becoming very popular in China, but 60% of all cosmetic surgery performed in this country, is an attempt to repair damage done from past surgeries.
We, as trans gender people, are extremely vulnerable to these less than reputable international-Internet plastic surgeons, not just because of the lack of laws, or the lack of integrity of these laws to extend equal protection to trans gender people, but because the emotional desperation and sense of urgency trans gender people feel to undergo a surgical sex change procedure, as soon as possible. We are frequently compelled to grasp at the first, and cheapest option available. This is an issue of emotional desperation for most of us! We are forced by society to feel this way.
Even in the best of legal circumstances, given the pervasive, and pandemic prejudice, and discrimination, trans gender people face, we can not expect local government authorities in the third world, or even the first world, to do the right thing, and treat us fairly by extending to us the same legal protections they extend to all others.
We must empower ourselves!!!!! We must protect our selves! We must speak out! There must be transparency in regards to the quality of medical care these Internet doctors are providing! There must be a website that rates, and tracks these doctors! This can be a matter of life and death!
Sincerely yours,
Heather Tascal
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