Yongyut Treenutkorn

Yongyut is creating Thailand's first integrated approach to the validation of traditional medicine by facilitating a system of peer-to-peer training by traditional doctors to the next generation; organizing the first traditional doctors professional association in Thailand; and linking the work to the conservation of local plants and herbs that support a healthy lifestyle.

Recognizing that one of the reasons for the disappearance of traditional doctors has been the lack of institutional supports, Yongyut has organized traditional doctors in Northeastern rural areas into a support group to provide counseling and traditional treatment to the community. Currently, he has set up free clinics and training courses for over 150 doctors in six provinces in the Northeastern region. He also works closely with the Village Foundation, a donor interested in holistic community development, to set up training courses for traditional doctors in other rural areas throughout the country. He is the first to organize and implement successfully a regional traditional health training program involving traditional doctors within the community. Recently his training program has spread to the countries of Laos, Vietnam, and Japan. He has been conducting training sessions in these countries to adapt his methodology for institutionalizing and gaining recognition for traditional medicine. Yongyut plans to establish the first ever association of traditional doctors by 2001. The aims of this association are to obtain validation and official recognition of traditional medicine and its medical doctors; to transfer and develop the traditional knowledge to the younger generation of traditional doctors; promote and replicate traditional medical institutions; to institutionalize the traditional profession by gaining recognition and support from government sources; and to enhance the role of traditional doctors by encouraging their involvement in the social issues of the rural community.Finally, Yongyut is enhancing the knowledge base and resources available to traditional doctors by mobilizing the younger generation of traditional doctors to locate existing herbs in local and other communities, keep detailed records of their properties, and search for and restore lost species. In 1994, Yongyut and his traditional doctor group worked with the Ministry of Public Health to set up the first ever institute of traditional medicine, which recognizes the important contribution of traditional medicine in modern day medical treatment and serves as a clearinghouse of information and research related to traditional medicine.As a result, Yongyut is revitalizing local interest in traditional medicine and raising the self-esteem and confidence of existing traditional doctors and that of the rural communities towards traditional health care.

Over a period of 40 years during which the government promoted modern medicine and health care, traditional medical health care services were badly neglected. The government even passed legislation to restrict the practicing of medicine by traditional doctors, which led these professionals to lose confidence and made them reluctant to pass on their traditional knowledge and skills to the next generation. In some cases, records of traditional medicine were destroyed rather than handed down to the next generation.

The younger generation, without the knowledge of their own traditions and the culture, generally believes that the western approach is the only way of advancement in this modern world. The younger generation has grown to be dependent on the modern medical treatment approach, unaware that their own long-standing traditional medical treatment is available at a fraction of the cost and often more effective as well.

Modern medicine is also very expensive and expected to become even more so in the future making it even more inaccessible to the rural community. For example, recently the Department of Public Health revealed that the government spent 60 billion baht (US $1.7 billion) updating medical services. In the present economic crisis the government is encouraging a national strategy of self-help and self-reliance within government agencies and among the population.

Traditional doctors have been isolated and do not generally have legal status. Currently no law supports them. The government and many people often equate traditional doctors with witch doctors. Within their local community, however, traditional doctors are often well respected, providing counseling and advice besides traditional medical treatment. Traditional medicine practiced through traditional doctors represents local folk wisdom and knowledge, linked to the traditional lifestyle which is considered an important factor in the social structure of a community, which if not preserved, will rapidly disappear. If this happens, the social structure of a community will be adversely affected.

Modern medicine tends to treat the patient's symptoms rather than the root cause of the illness. Traditional medicine, instead, tends to take a more holistic approach to the patient's condition by probing further into their life style to ensure they have all relevant facts concerning the patient's illness.

Through their knowledge of natural resources and their use of various medical treatments, traditional doctors are vital members of local communities, providing them with the essential knowledge of how best to protect and conserve their natural environment. Without their contribution, important local plant life would be lost and the local people would have to rely wholly on the provision of modern medicine.

Yongyut, by mapping and identifying traditional doctors in the Northeastern rural areas, has organized them into a support group to provide counseling and traditional treatment. Initially, he encouraged traditional doctors to pass on their valuable knowledge and skills in traditional medicine to the younger generation by combining on-the-job training, observation and discussion. Subsequently, he formed a network of traditional doctors throughout the Northeastern region. Yongyut has organized a mobile team of traditional doctors to provide training to young doctors, which lasts five days and is followed by further training on a regular basis. Through hands-on training with the traditional doctors the young doctors are able to practice in the community together with doctor teachers, which enhances the credibility and confidence of the students.

Yongyut has worked closely with the new generation of traditional doctors, those who are literate and younger (30s), to collect and compile knowledge concerning traditional medical skills and herbal medicines passed through the generations via the senior traditional doctors. This has been published in book form together with educational material, which have been disseminated to the public. Recently, the Ministry of Public Health has expressed an interest in including knowledge concerning traditional medicine in the primary school. Following their training the young doctors are able to treat the patients and at the same time teach them how to live a healthier lifestyle by adjusting themselves to the circumstances of their surroundings.

Yongyut will continue working with policy makers and modern medical doctors to introduce legislation which will support the acceptance of traditional medicine as a legally recognized form of medical treatment equal to the modern medical establishment. Since 1996, Yongyut has been collaborating with an established group known as the "Rural Doctors", a network of modern doctors who are concerned with the social aspects of public health, to document and disseminate the existing body of knowledge of traditional medicine. This network of modern doctors is a crucial ally in Yongyut's strategy of gaining official recognition of traditional medicine due to the positions that these doctors hold and the influence they have in setting public health care policy. These modern doctors also are responsible for documenting in a scientific manner the successful results of certain traditional medicines. Already, through Yongyut's different examples of successful implementation of traditional medicine practices in rural areas, the Ministry of Health has begun to support the initiatives that Yongyut has been introducing.

Yongyut was born in 1957. Following his graduation, in the 1970s, he went to live and work among the rural poor communities of the Northeastern area where he came to appreciate the simple life style and the interdependency on each other and on local resources for everyday life. He has spent over 18 years working with rural poor communities, marrying a local woman who is a registered nurse and is now teaching public health care at public colleges.

Yongyut passionately described his life among the rural community and how their suffering from poverty and neglect by the authorities motivated him to try and find ways in which he could be of service and support to them. In particular, his personal experience of helplessness when treating one child with diarrhea and another who had been a victim of snakebite emphasized for him how interdependent traditional health care and modern medical are on each other. In both cases, Yongyut brought the child to the clinic but the modern medical doctor was either unavailable that day or not knowledgeable of the antidote specific to the area's snakebites. In addition, his experience while living in the village with a traditional doctor impressed upon him the doctor's passionate response in helping the poor tackle both mental and physical illness which prompted Yongyut to begin learning skills of a traditional doctor himself.

Yongyut has been recognized by the Ministry of Public Health for his contribution to rural health care to the extent and has been asked by the Ministry to produce a curriculum on traditional health care to be incorporated in the normal curriculum. Yongyut is also held in high esteem based on his past service to the rural community and for his vision for traditional health care among the local community in the future.