Background: Third-year (first preclinical year) Royal Thai Army (RTA) medical cadets were exposed to a rural community in a community medicine field activity. The poor, kind rural people gave good conditions for studentûs professional development and empathy.
Objectives: To report a community medicine field work activity for professional development of the RTA medical school.
Material and Method: Descriptive analysis on two occasions to evaluate the third-year RTA medical cadetsû impressions immediately after the community medicine field activity in a rural area in central Thailand and one year later using baseline scores of cadetsû impressions against our instituteûs objectives.
Results: At the end of the field work, 90.9% of the cadets reported they achieved several institute
objectives. The four most frequent mentioned were ethical development (70.6%), professionalism (84.3%), human relationship & communication skills (92.2%), and capability to work in the cmmunity (64.7%). Furthermore, RTA medical cadets rated the staff as good role models (51%).
Conclusion: The community field work course provided a good environment for the third year medical cadets in building morality and professional development to be good doctors.

Keywords: Medical ethics, Ethical teaching, Community medicine, Moral assessment, Authentic assessment, Professional development, Professionalism