Research & Article

More than half of the world's people have no reasonable access to health care, and for most of the rest, the care they receive does not answer the problems they have. The deficits in health care are greatest in the less developed countries, and Thailand is no exception. Despite having a substantial number of medical and nursing schools of recognized international standard and a well-established and concerned Ministry of Health, Thailand is faced with extremely serious problems in trying to reach its people with adequate health care. While the reasons for these inadequacies are complex, important causative factors can be found in the universities. In brief, the traditional means by which universities develop their programs are not well suited to meeting the problems as they exist in the nation. In this paper, we will use the relationship between the health needs of rural Thailand and the education of physicians as a framework for discussing the challenges that confront universities around the world and the difficulties universities are having responding to those challenges.