Adolescent health in Asia: insights from Thailand.

Abstract

Adolescence in an age of opportunity in Thailand. The main health issues of this age group are related to pregnancy, injuries and poisoning, all which should be preventable. This article presents the experiences of Thai physicians, who received adolescent medicine fellowship training in North America and brought their experience, knowledge, skills, and adolescent health care principles and practice back to Thailand. The anticipations and the facts faced in everyday practice, training, research, and collaboration in a place with their own culture and societal norms are described. Currently, there are six adolescent medicine specialists who work with experienced specialist in the subcommittee of adolescent health under the Royal College of Pediatricians of Thailand. There has been collaboration with both the public sector and health care sector, government and non-government organizations with regards to health care service and promotion. Many hospitals especially residency training institutes have increased the cut-off age of patients to be seen by pediatricians to 15 or 18 years of age. Since 2011, adolescent medicine was made one of the mandatory rotations in all pediatric resident training programs. There is still more work to be done - issues around policies for confidentiality and a lower age of consent, collaboration between other specialties to enable a large-scale youth-friendly one-stop services, and multicenter research opportunities are still awaiting.