Medical education in Thailand: an alternate perspective

This research is an attempt to provide greater understanding of two previously described medical education programmes in Thailand by placing them in historical perspective. One is a PhD programme to train medical school teachers and the other is a community health programme for medical students. The underying assumptions of the programmes are specified and through the use of archival material it is shown that in some respects the programmes are quite similar to earlier efforts to create western medical education programmes in Thailand. The analysis focuses on four major concerns of the programmes: creating small numbers of less well trained personnel; distributing medical resources to unserved rural areas; dealing with the special health needs of Thailand in the curricula; and self-consciously creating a professional elite. The discussion points up the need for historical data in evaluating the efficacy of medical education programmes.