Trust & Safety

How we verify doctors

Choosing a surgeon abroad shouldn’t mean guessing. Here’s exactly how we check credentials — and what a badge on MedellínMD does and doesn’t mean.

1

National medical registry (RETHUS)

Colombia’s Registro Único Nacional del Talento Humano en Salud (RETHUS), run by the Ministry of Health, is the official record of who is licensed to practice medicine and in which specialty. We check each doctor’s registration against it — the same source Colombian hospitals use.

2

Specialty societies

Board-level membership in Colombia’s specialty societies — the Sociedad Colombiana de Cirugía Plástica (SCCP), Asocolderma (dermatology), the Sociedad Colombiana de Oftalmología, and others — signals accredited, specialty-specific training. We look for it and surface it on the profile.

3

Clinic & hospital affiliations

Where a doctor operates matters. We record the clinics and hospitals they work with, including JCI-accredited institutions in Medellín, so you can see the facilities behind the care.

4

The doctor confirms their own profile

Directory profiles start from public records. When a doctor claims their profile, they confirm their identity and add their photo, bio, and services themselves — so what you read is theirs, not ours.

What the badges mean

  • Verified Physician— we confirmed the doctor’s credentials against the registry and they’ve claimed and completed their profile.
  • Public Registry Profile— built from public records and not yet claimed by the doctor. The facts are real, but the doctor hasn’t confirmed or completed the profile.

We’re transparent about this on purpose: a directory is only useful if you can trust what each label means. MedellínMD is an information service, not a healthcare provider — always confirm credentials and suitability directly with the physician.