Zone 6: Kanphai Mahidol | ฝ่ายจดหมายเหตุและพิพิธภัณฑ์ หอสมุดและคลังความรู้มหาวิทยาลัยมหิดล

Museum &

Exhibitions

Home
HRH the Prince Father’s Biography Gallery
Zone 6: Kanphai Mahidol

Zone 6: Kanphai Mahidol

The zone features HRH the Prince Father’s activities for the country’s progress and prosperity, namely those in the fields of medical and public health development, both academically and in the aspect of hospital administration. Among the significant undertakings was his consent to represent the Thai government in the negotiation with the Rockefeller Foundation focusing on joint medical and nursing development. Concerning education, he promoted public understanding so that people would realize that education was essential while rendering financial support for education. Moreover, he was actively involved in laying educational foundation covering several fields.

Medicine and Public Health

Prince Mahidol’s contributions in the two fields date back to 1915 when he visited Siriraj Hospital to observe its operations and became aware of inadequate medical services prevailing at the time. It was then that he decided to help improve Thailand’s medical study, both academically and administratively. Concrete actions started during his student years include human resource development in the fields of medicine and nursing whereby students were sent on study trips to foreign countries and grants were provided from his private funds in an effort to upgrade the quality of academic staff, the legacy of which still continues till this day in the form of the Royal Legacy Scholarship.

Among Prince Mahidol’s significant undertakings was his consent to represent the Thai government in the negotiation with the Rockefeller Foundation focusing on joint medical and nursing development and upgrading of the standard of medical study to the undergraduate level, the first of its kind in Thailand. Furthermore, he initiated the development planning of Siriraj Hospital, provided running water for the hospital and rendered financial support for the construction of several buildings in the hospital.

Out of his serious concern over such deadly diseases as malaria and tuberculosis, he wrote articles entitled “Tuberculosis” and “Sanitary Practices” to educate the public.

Education

In his capacity as Director-General of the Department of University Affairs and Commissioner for General Education Inspection, Prince Mahidol of Songkla dedicated himself to educational affairs with great interest. To him, the benefit of education was immeasurable. Nevertheless, educational expense was absolutely not included in the household budget of most Thai families at the time. Hence, he was actively involved in promoting the public’s interest in education at all levels so that people would realize the necessity of education.

In endorsing education for women, Prince Mahidol allocated funding to a number of schools for girls such as Satrividhaya School and Wattana Wittaya Academy. He also supported higher education for Thai women and granted scholarships for overseas studies to women, starting from the field of nursing, which contributed to the rapid development of nursing standards in Thailand.

Besides medicine and nursing, Prince Mahidol laid a solid foundation for studies in pharmaceutical science, public health and dentistry. His guidelines and assistance were provided for other fields as well.

Mahidol Kanphai

“Thailand needs a large number of citizens with knowledge and expertise in two fields: medicine and engineering. Both of them are essential to the promotion of Thailand to be on a par with most developed countries and to the happiness of Thai people”. The statement reflects the Prince Mahidol of Songkla interest in and concern for the country.

One of his undertakings at the national level was to give financial support to hospitals, Buddhist temples, schools and construction projects such as Ubhaichesadudisa Bridge.

“We must try to keep improving our language both in the aspect of vocabulary, sentence structure and style so that it can be used to express both Eastern and Western concepts. This is as compulsory as for the country to have military forces or railways ... Therefore, what we really need is the training of our thoughts that will become the bulk of our rhetoric and vocabulary”.

The Prince Mahidol of Songkla handwritten message quoted above indicates his profound interest in “thinking” which he considered to be at the core of every subject matter.

HRH Prince Mahidol’s activities and speech evidently reflects his interest in a variety of sciences, not only in medical science and public health. His attention in sciences is a basic extensively resulting contributions to Thai Society.