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UNE strengthens ties with Thai health

July 21, 2005

Thai Crown PrincessTwo academics from the University of New England have visited Thailand to see how Thais are dealing with a problem that has plagued Australia for years: a shortage of doctors in rural areas.

The trip follows a visit to UNE last year by 14 senior Thai health officials to discuss how rural medical education in Thailand is staving a haemorrhage of doctors and health workers from rural areas to the city. Doctors educated in rural areas, stay in rural areas, the Thai experience has shown.

The UNE academics that visited Thailand were David Briggs, Coordinator of the Health Management program for the School of Health at UNE and Adjunct Professor John Fraser, Director of the Rural Health Training Unit of New England Health. They were accompanied by Dr Prawit Taytiwat, a PhD candidate at UNE and an instigator of last year’s visit.

During their one-week stay in Thailand they went to Phitsanulok province in the north of the country to discuss rural medical education with academics from Naresuan University and officials from the Thai Health Ministry. They were able to find plenty of common ground with their Thai counterparts.

“They face many of the same challenges we do in getting more medical staff into rural areas,” Mr Briggs said. “What they’ve done is gone one step further by introducing rural medical education programs. They’ve found the best way to retain medical staff in rural areas is by educating them in rural institutions. That’s one step ahead of what we do in Australia, which is to educate medical professionals in city-based universities and then send them out on rural placements. We’ve learned quite a bit from them in that respect.”

Mr Briggs and Professor Fraser also visited a number of provincial hospitals and gave a press conference with the Permanent Secretary of the Thai Ministry of Public Health. A highlight of the visit was an audience with the Thai Crown Princess, Her Royal Highness Maha Chakri Sirindhorn (the princess is a patron of Naresuan University). At a ceremony attended by Buddhist monks and senior officials the UNE delegates presented the princess with an inscribed copy of A Spirit of True Learning: The Jubilee History of the University of New England on behalf of UNE.

While in Thailand the two academics discussed a variety of ways UNE and Naresuan University could collaborate to improve health management training for medical professionals in Thailand and Australia. Among the proposals were cooperative research projects, staff and student exchanges and sending rural Thai doctors to UNE on study tours, to give them a firsthand look at medical administration and practice in Australia. The first such tour is planned for later this year.

Mr Briggs said he was “extremely impressed” with the calibre of Thai health professionals. “I had been to Thailand about a decade ago to look at their health system, and I must say they’ve progressed a lot since then. I came away with a fair bit of respect for the way they do things. The system of rural medical education over there is something Australia should be looking at replicating if we’re serious about retaining medical professionals in rural areas.”

A photo is available to accompany this story. Contact Leon Braun (UNE Public Relations) on 6773 3771 for more information.

Posted by Leon Braun at July 21, 2005 10:02 AM