The Public Health Ministry, however, has maintained that there is nothing wrong about such training, as it encourages discipline, harmony, and endurance.

Pictures and video clips from the training have been shared on social media sites since Thursday, showing new interns taking part in several military-style training exercises, such as running through a blaze, night jungle trekking and crawling under barbed wire.

The training, part of the new civil servant orientation of Health Provider Regional 5, has sparked much criticism on the Internet.

A new intern who participated in the event and asked to be named as Benz said that the intensive training was held at Chulachomklao Royal Military Academy as part of a five-day orientation course for new civil servant. Two full days were spent on the military-style ground training.

“I was in the last group during the training and started the training at around 7pm, so we had to participate in every activity in the dark. We had to trek through the dark jungle in the rain. We asked the trainers to change the programme because it was very dangerous to trek in the jungle in that situation, but failed,” Benz said.

“I felt terrible and abused, because the trainers, who were soldiers, insulted us and used bad words to address us. I suffered both physically and mentally and I did not see any benefit from this kind of training.”

She stated that the new interns did not resist the harsh training because they were told that if they skipped the training they would fail the orientation and would not be enlisted as civil servants.

“I have heard that this training has been going on for at least five years and the senior interns have already complained about this to the Public Health Ministry, but nothing was improved,” Benz said.

Dr Bantawit Sudsanguan, a former intern at Health Provider Regional 2, said he had heard of the harsh training during the civil servant orientation in some of other areas since he attended a similar activity three years ago. But what he experienced at the orientation of Regional 2 was totally different.

“There was just a seminar on the general topics about being a good civil servant and a good doctor in the hotel seminar room, and there was no such military-style training,” Bantawit said.

Inspector-general Region 5 Dr Pisit Sriprasert said that it was true that the new interns from Regional 5 participated in the military-style training programme but he insisted the training was aligned with the Civil Service Commission Office’s regulations.

“The intention of this training is to encourage discipline, harmony, and endurance of the new doctors and prepare them to be a good civil servant. I know that many of the new doctors were not familiar with the military-style training, so it is understandable that they are not happy with the training and complained on social media,” Pisit said.

“We provide proper safety to all interns during the training. Moreover, the executives of the ministry also participated in military-style training before, so we include this activity in the new civil servant orientation.”

However, he said that as there was so much criticism over this year’s training, the ministry would adjust next year’s training to suit new doctors more.

Benz said, however, the reasoning that the training would boost the discipline and harmony of the interns was invalid. She said most of the interns are already grown-up and the nature of being a doctor forces them to work in a team.