A paediatric social responsiveness project in Thailand

A 1-month rotation in Social Paediatrics is compulsory for paediatric residency training in Thailand. Since 1985, the resident doctors (residents) taking this rotation at Prince of Songkla University (PSU) have been assigned to do fieldwork at a primary care hospital, and visit eight health service organisations involved with child rights and child protection.

After 25 years of the Social Paediatrics rotation, we felt that this compulsory rotation was not as effective as it could be. In 2010, the Social Responsiveness Project was conducted in the PSU paediatric residency training as an extracurricular activity, with the basic idea being that residents can play an important role in recognising health problems in the community.

During 2010-2011 the residents organised the Social Responsiveness Project by surveying children's health problems in the CV Crowded Community, and visited the community on one weekend every 3-4 months.

After 2 years of the Social Responsiveness Project, all of the participating residents (n = 17) felt that the programme had been of benefit to them, and had a positive effect on the community, and indicated an intention to continue working in social responsiveness projects in their community after finishing their residency training. Hence, the results of this study indicate that the Social Responsiveness Project is useful for both society at large and for residents in helping young doctors to recognise the problems faced by the children in disadvantaged communities, and what they can do as doctors to help improve the situation of these children.