Thai Doctor Working In N.Z. Under Colombo Plan

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30332, 7 January 1964, Page 2

Thai Doctor Working In N.Z. Under Colombo Plan

An anaesthetist in the, Police Hospital at Bangkok,! Dr. Übol Sukprasith. who is in New Zealand under the; Colombo Plan to further her', experience, will work in! Christchurch hospitals for the’ next three months.

She has already spent 10 months in the anaesthetic department of the Dunedin Hospital, and will go to Wellington, and possibly Auckland hospitals before returning to Thailand next Seotember

For her first four months in this country, Dr. Tukpra-

uith took a course in English at Wellington. English was taught in schools in Thailand, she said in Christchurch last evening, but there were not many opportunities to practise the language there. The Police Hospital, run by the Police Department in Bangkok, did have medical and general departments, but the majority of its patients were there as the result of accidents, she said. There were three medical schools in Thailand, two in Bangkok, both attached to hospitals, and one in northern Thailand. A doctor’s training took six years, the same as in this country. Though she is looking forward to seeing her family again, after what will be almost two years of separation, Dr. Sukprasith has enjoyed her time in New Zealand, and has met a number

of her countrymen and! women, also here studying! under tlie Colombo Plan. Though she is quite used! to it now. New Zealand food seemed very strange to her when she first arrived, coming from a country where rice is the staple diet Though not a keen cook, she does sometimes cook the traditional dishes of her own land.; New Zealand’s rugged! landscape is also very different from Thailand. “We do not have so many hills. In New Zealand everywhere is hills—except Christchurch,” she said with a smile.

Reading is one of Dr. Sukprasith’s favourite recreations.