Pook- I'm curious about your comment that Thailand was never colonized by western powers and I agree but what was the relationship between Japanese and Thais during WWII. Did the Japanese not occupy Thailand (and for that matter much of Southeast Asia)?

Bill...... we allied with Japan and declared war on the allies! Thailand had just recently changed from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy and the power that be at that time was pro fascism. The King, Rama 7, was the last absolute monarchy in Thailand had just passed away and had earlier abdicated his throne. The next in line was Rama 8 - our current King's older brother who reign from the age of 13 and from abroad.

Even though we allied with Japan, there was a large resistance movement notably by royalist who fought the Japanese in Thailand and abroad.

Basically we were never colonised by the Japanese but more like being forced to allied with them. Luckily the Thai ambassador to the United States at that time never delivered the declaration of war and the US never declare war back on us. However, we did declare war on England and England declared war on us.

This might be of interest. I recall talking to my late grandparents about the Japanese during WW2. To my surprise they all said the Japanese troops were very polite and well behaved!

Try Thantakit. Clean, efficient service and English speaking dentists that don't wanna make a buck out of you. My friend wanted an Invisalign but the dentist in Thantakit said it wasn't suitable for her. Now that's transparency! Anyhow, with those procedures you've mentioned, it pays that you find the best place to spare yourself from the problems later due to a poor dental job.

I second Thantakit. This is one of the very few trustworthy dental clinics in Bangkok. Quite a staple name when it comes to dental holidays and dental places preferred by expats. I had two root canal treatments with them back in 2012 and I was really pleased with how well it turned out, not to mention how much I saved compared to the ones quoted to me in SF! :)

"http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-02/dental-health-hiv-hepatitis-scare-sydney-may-affect-thousands/6588534


Thousands of people have been advised to have checks for blood/fluid born diseases.

Bear in mind there is no mechanism in Thailand for checking this sort of thing.
corruption would mean that it wouldn't surface and there is virtually no comeback whatsoever if something goes wrong.

As a lay person we are unable to check out any medical practice thoroughly and we rely on independent bodies to check them for us.....there is no effective system for this in Thailand.

KW, I know you don't put much store by hospital accreditation, but many of us find info from accrediting bodies very useful.

One of the things the accrediting body monitors carefully is infection control procedures. I only know about Bumrungrad, not what other hospitals are accredited, but it is accredited by the international arm of JCAHO.

Note that the article linked above is about a dental clinic in Sydney and is unrelated to dental clinics or hospitals in Thailand.

Unfortunately you are misinformed about the TYPE of accreditation that Bumrungrad has.....as a re most of their customers...they do NOT have the same accreditation as US (the Western world's worst healthcare system) there has been a huge amount of criticism of this accreditation. Accreditation abroad is through JCI a subsidiary company of the old US parent company.

however this is not relevant to my point.

the point is that in Australia there are systems in place to DISCOVER and CORECT this sort of incident - that's why it hit the media.
In Thailand there is no effect monitoring of healthcare in any form. If/when this occurs it will not be published or even discovered.

i should also have pointed out that JCI (an independent private not-for-proifit company with a lot of money) does not cover the whole of Bumrungrad it accredits certain departments only.
Furthermore no-one has ever been refused accreditation. There is no surprise or unannounced inspection it is always arranged at the convenience of the hospital. Of course even this sort of accreditation is not applied to most of the dental clinics in Thailand which are allowed to carry on as they like with little or no supervision by any independent authority..