Prince of Songkhla--a new dental faculty

The sophisticated cities, the ancient culture, splendid hotels, wonderful beaches, the variety of food, the beautiful people, the predictable climate and above all the smiling friendliness of the Thais make up some of the exotic attractions extolled by Thailand's tourist industry. For the last 8 years, through the good offices of British Council, several British academics have appreciated all that but have also had the privilege of working alongside Thai colleagues in a much more down-to-earth mode. In 1980 the Thai Government decided that a dental faculty with a target output of 40 DDS graduates per annum should be set up at the Prince of Songkhla University at Hadyai, a town of some 100,000 inhabitants about 1000 km south of Bangkok near the Malaysian border. The university itself is modern, situated on a splendid campus and has a well-established medical faculty. At that time, there were, in Thailand, four dental faculties: two in Bangkok, one in Chiang Mai and one at Khon Kaen. Prince of Songkhla was to be the fifth.