Siriraj Hospital

Siriraj Hospital is the oldest hospital in Thailand, located in Bangkok on the west bank of Chao Phraya River, opposite Thammasat University's Tha Phrachan campus. It is the primary teaching hospital of the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University. The hospital was founded by King Chulalongkorn in 1888, two years after a worldwide cholera outbreak. It is named after the king's 18-month old son, Prince Siriraj Kakuttaphan, who had died from dysentery a year before the opening of the hospital. The medical school was established two years later in 1890. With the capacity of more than 3,000 beds and more than one million outpatient visits per year, Siriraj is one of the largest, most-congested medical centers in Thailand. The medical school accepts about 250 medical students and more than 100 for postgraduate residency training each year.