Focusing on the assets in our challenges: family medicine residency programme in Chiang Rai, Thailand

[...]the inception of FM residency, GPs could apply for formal medical subspecialty training (similar to the US residency programmes) and could return to teaching hospitals only after the completion of 3 years. According to the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand 2017, the MOPH mandates the promotion of FM as a principle vehicle of primary care and to achieve the ratio of one family physician to 10 000 residents by 2027.5 Balancing the unprecedented demand to increase the number of family physicians without compromising on the quality of training is difficult. The lack of the role of a family physician in the system has negatively affected the family doctors’ motivation as well as the recruitment of residency candidates.11–13 Like many other countries struggling to establish primary care specialties,14 the triad of low recognition, limited support and overwhelming patient care does not help sustain teaching programmes and drives many to leave FM for other subspecialties or to non-teaching private practice. Working closely with a regional network of primary care offers opportunities to learn and address numerous health issues in all primary, secondary and tertiary care settings. Since we administer both in-service and hospital-based tracks, residents from both programmes can learn from each other on the different scopes and views between communities and tertiary care centres.