About 600 patient cards, 15 people with facial damage, a facelift on 4 July 2025: Pekanbaru's 'beauty doctor' who was never a doctor, arrested April 2026

Indonesia requires every doctor to hold a Surat Tanda Registrasi (STR) issued by the Indonesian Health Council (KKI), and the Indonesian Doctors Association (IDI) says aesthetic medicine is a medical act that only a doctor with the right competence may perform. The Pekanbaru case of 2026 shows what happens when a training certificate is allowed to stand in for that registration, and how long the damage can go unnoticed.

According to Suara.com on 29 April 2026, investigators from Sub-directorate IV of the special crimes directorate (Ditreskrimsus) of Riau provincial police detained a woman identified by the initials JRF, a former finalist of Putri Indonesia Riau, at her family home in Bukit Ambacang, Bukittinggi, West Sumatra, in late April after she had ignored two summonses. She was taken to Polda Riau and named a suspect. Detik reported the same day that the directorate's chief, Senior Commissioner (Kombes) Ade Kuncoro, said she was suspected of claiming to be a doctor and performing medical procedures on a victim at Klinik Arauna Beauty on Jalan Tengku Bey, Pekanbaru. Suara reported that she had run the practice from 2019 to 2025 with no medical education and no authority as a health worker.

The case was triggered by a woman who had a facelift and eyebrow lift at the clinic on 4 July 2025 and afterwards suffered heavy bleeding and a serious infection of the face and head, Suara and Detik reported; she needed further surgery at facilities in Batam and was left with a permanent scalp scar where hair will not regrow and a long scar near the eyebrow. Police said about 15 people had suffered facial damage, including one with two failed lip procedures. Detik reported on 30 April that officers led by AKBP Agus Prihadinika had seized about 600 patient cards with visit records and a price list, syringes, stitching needles and surgical knives from the clinic. The same report quoted Dr Odih, chairman of IDI Pekanbaru and dean of the medical faculty at the University of Riau, who said the suspect had opened an aesthetic practice 'based only on a certificate', that any medical act must be backed by an STR or STR-KT from the KKI, and that the government should tighten licensing, supervision and scheduled coordination with the professional bodies.

The check that failed was the one no patient made. A clinic with a name, a price list and a photogenic owner looked like a medical business, and, in IDI's words, a certificate was all that stood behind it. Roughly six years and about 600 patient files passed before one injured patient went to the police.

For a student the lesson applies to any clinic, anywhere. Ask for the doctor's STR number and look it up on the Health Council's public register; ask who holds the permit for that address; and treat a course certificate as what it is, proof that someone attended a course. If the person holding the needle cannot show a registration number that matches their name, the price is irrelevant.