Three decades of a lesson learned from Thailand: compulsory service for dentist workforce distribution.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Thailand has encountered an imbalanced dentist distribution and an internal brain drain of dentists from public to private health care facilities. To tackle these challenges, the compulsory service (CS) program, which has been initially implemented for physicians, was extended for dentists.

Method

This policy and workforce document review describes the background, development, and policy implementation of the CS program in Thailand during the past three decades. Outcomes after policy implementation and future directions are also discussed. The information was gathered from the relevant policy and workforce documents available from 1961 to 2021.

Results

In Thailand, junior dentists, specifically newly graduates, have to enroll in the CS program by working as

SUBMITTER: Arunratanothai T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8733760 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature