Osama Hamza Ajlan Al-Madina I have written many articles about fake PhDs and people who have become PhD holders overnight. I have always attributed the reason behind the spread of fake PhDs to the media which continues to misuse academic titles. Sometimes, the media, mainly newspapers, confuses the words “doctor” and “professor”. I strongly believe that only doctors of medicine should be called doctors. We should not call a university professor of literature a doctor. There is a huge difference between the two. I have myself launched a campaign against people who falsely claim they hold PhDs. Moreover, I suggested that the Ministry of Education's website should have a section listing the names of people who hold genuine PhDs, their fields of study and the university they graduated from. I also suggest that the ministry should make PhD holders swear by Allah the Almighty that their PhD research was conducted solely by themselves and not bought from somewhere else or conducted by someon else. Today, it is easy to buy a PhD research thesis or to have it prepared by someone else. Many fake PhD holders do that and pay a lot of money for it. I would like to attract the reader's attention to the fact that many of the guests appearing on our cultural satellite channels do not have genuine PhDs. They are in fact fake professors. Yet, the hosts call them doctors or professors. This is nothing but a charade and we should ask why satellite channels encourage these fake professors by calling them doctors or professors in front of thousands of viewers. I hope the media will stop using these titles even if the person deserves it because many of the guests on TV shows do not speak about matters related to their fields of study. So why should we give them such titles?
