Summary of Dr. Sarah’s  Experience in Vietnam with Vital Links for Humanity

October-November 2007

            I had an amazing time in Vietnam!  I met many wonderful people, came away with many new friends, tried a lot of really great food, took in beautiful scenery, and I tried to show Christ’s love in everything I did. 

            I spent a lot of time at Children’s Hospital Number One, and I met many of my new friends there.  I also learned so many new things.  I spent my first two days in the NICU, and Anna (Chau) was very helpful to me.  She emailed me before I arrived and picked me up at the airport.  She also picked me up at my hotel to take me to the hospital on my first day, which I appreciated so much because I was nervous about finding the right place.  She introduced me to many people in the NICU, and also helped arrange for me to teach English to the NICU nurses.  I only actually taught 3 lessons because many times when I would come to teach a lesson, someone else was using the conference room, or else all the nurses were too busy at the time.  Anna also took me with several other NICU nurses to a coffee shop after my first day there – she even gave me ride on her motorbike.  I was a little wary of motorbikes at first, but Anna lent me a helmet which made me feel better.  Anna’s sister was also wonderful – she has a car, so they invited me to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels with them.  It was a wonderful trip, and it was fun to get to know Anna and her sister better.  Thanh, a doctor I met in the nephrology department, also came to the Cu Chu Tunnels with us.  I also had a fun time getting to know Anh, a doctor from the NICU.  She spoke English very well and it was interesting to compare her NICU experiences with my own.  She invited me to dinner twice and we ate traditional Vietnamese food.  She also took me to see many of the sights at the center of Ho Chi Minh City, like the post office and Notre Dame Cathedral.  At the end of my stay, she invited me to her house, which turned out to be very close to my hotel.  It was interesting to see what a Vietnamese house is like.

            After my first few days in the NICU, I moved on to the nephrology/endocrinology department.  I am very interested in endocrinology and next year will start a pediatric endocrinology fellowship, so I was especially excited to spend time in that department.  I saw a lot of very interesting patients – many of them had gone a long time before they sought medical attention so many had classic and more advanced clinical exam findings than I have seen before.  I also met many great people in that department; as I mentioned previously, Thanh became a good friend.  I spent a lot of time with her while she saw new and old patients.  She also took me to see her apartment and bought me lunch several times.

            The third department I spent time in was the infectious disease department.  While I was there, they had an epidemic of hand, foot, mouth disease.  I thought I knew about hand, foot, mouth disease previously, but I learned so much about it in Vietnam!  I had no idea that it could cause encephalitis or that it could be deadly.  I was able to spend a lot of time with the doctors who admitted the new patients, and I also followed several patients in the emergency ward.  I could hardly believe how quickly and how severely the children became sick.  I especially remember one boy with hand, foot, mouth encephalitis who I saw when he first came in, and he developed very low blood pressure, kidney failure, and had to be intubated; within 3 days he passed away.  I also saw a lot of meningitis in the infectious disease department, and I was able to perform a few lumbar punctures.  I even saw one patient with mumps, which I have never seen in the United States. 

            The last department I spent time in was the dengue fever/hematology department.  Like the infectious disease department, it was very eye-opening.  I didn’t know anything about dengue fever before this experience, but every day I saw at least 20 patients with dengue fever, so now I feel I could recognize and diagnose it.  I learned all about the differences between dengue fever and dengue hemorrhagic fever, and about who needs intravenous fluids and who doesn’t.  I also saw many patients with beta thalassemia and a few patients with hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH).  One patient with HLH will also be in my memory, as he was very sick in the emergency ward for several days while I was there; he required intubation but there was not a ventilator for him, so his family had to sit by his bedside and bag him constantly.  That really hit home as far as how blessed people in the US are in regards to health care, because here I was at one of the biggest and best children’s hospitals in all of Vietnam, and yet there were still not enough ventilators.  I remember that child’s parents constantly sitting by his bedside and crying, and on my very last day in the hospital at the very end of the day, he coded and died.  His parents were sobbing and screaming and people had to hold them down in the hallway.  Even as I left the hospital that day, for the last time, they were still in the hallway crying.  That evening, I went to dinner with two doctors from the dengue fever department who had been very helpful and taught me many things during the week.  We went to a very large and very nice restaurant and again ate so much really delicious food!  I had fish cooked inside a gourd and venison cooked on a grill right at our table.  Afterwards we went to a coffee shop and talked more. 

            I was privileged to be at Children’s Hospital Number One when they hosted the fifth annual Australia–Vietnam pediatric conference.  I spent three days at the conference, and I was able to hear lectures from pediatricians from Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, as well as research presentations from Vietnamese pediatricians.  I learned a lot more about Enterovirus 71 and Dengue fever at the conference, and I heard several very interesting endocrinology lectures.

            At the beginning of my stay in Vietnam, I took a taxi to most places.  As I mentioned above, Anna let me borrow a helmet so then I felt better about motorbikes.  I took a taxi to the hospital every morning, but often in the afternoon one of the doctors or nurses would take me somewhere with them on their motorbike and then back to the hotel in the evening.  I liked riding a motorbike with someone I knew, but I felt uncomfortable when it was someone I didn’t know, so I rarely used a xe om.  The hotel was very nice and everyone who worked there was very helpful and friendly.  When I first arrived I was very happy to see how clean and nice it was, and it was a special treat to have the mini fridge and satellite TV in my room.  I also appreciated the computer and the restaurant in the hotel.  It was good to have everything I needed right at the hotel so I didn’t have to walk around by myself if I didn’t want to. 

            Traveling to the orphanages with Dr. Hang was one of my favorite experiences of my trip.  It was so much fun to see the cute kids.  I brought a lot of crayons and coloring books and bubbles and other small toys, and it was fun to see the kids playing with everything.  It was very gratifying to be able to do well-child checks as well as sick checks; I was very glad to have someone to interpret for me.   Sometimes at the hospital, it would have been nice to have an interpreter specifically to help me.  Most of the time I was able to hang out with a doctor who spoke English well enough to explain things to me, but sometimes the person I was with didn’t know enough English, and sometimes they were so busy that they couldn’t take the time to interpret things for me.  With the help of the interpreter at the orphanages, it felt really good to be able to see kids on my own.  I felt like I was accomplishing a lot and helping out a lot!  It was really good to talk with Dr. Hang and her husband during the car rides to and from the orphanages, also.  They invited me to church with them and even picked me up at my hotel.  I met their three beautiful daughters and really enjoyed their church.  I also had fun talking with some of the other girls who traveled to the orphanages to help with medication distribution.

            Another really fun part of my trip was all the people I met at the Bible studies at the hotel.  I was able to lead 3 different Bible studies; at the first Bible study and the last Bible study several people came.  At the second Bible study it was pouring rain and I thought no one would be able to come, but one young man still came!  At the first Bible study Van provided a handout about Martin Luther and we talked about trusting God, and at the other two we read from Ephesians and talked about redemption through Christ.  Sometimes I felt like I was giving a Bible lecture rather than leading a Bible study because nobody said very much, but hopefully they still enjoyed it.  I met Thao at the first Bible study and she became a good friend.  She invited me to a coffee shop with her, and we had a lot of fun sitting out under the starry beautiful sky, eating coconut ice cream, and listening to the live piano and violin music.  She and Van also took me to lunch twice – the first time we went to a buffet and I ate so much food!  Thao and Van showed me what to eat and it was all really good.  They also went shopping downtown with me and I was able to buy a lot of souvenirs.  My very last day in Vietnam, they took me to lunch again, and Thao’s sister also came with us.  After lunch, we did karaoke!  I had never done karaoke before, but it was really fun and made for a really wonderful last day in Vietnam. 

            Overall, my trip to Vietnam with Vital Links for Humanity was a wonderful experience that I will always treasure.  Children’s Hospital Number One was a great place to learn from, and the people I met there were so open and friendly.  The only thing I can think of that would have made it even better would be to have an interpreter to work one on one with me at the hospital.  Like I mentioned above, sometimes it was hard to figure out what was going on if they were too busy to translate, and I wasn’t able to see patients on my own as I didn’t have a translator.  I would have even been willing to pay extra money to have a translator with me at least some of the time.  Otherwise I can’t think of anything else I would change – my hotel was great, the food was great, the people who I met and who helped me out were great, I learned a lot and met a lot of beautiful and cute children, and I saw many very interesting things and amazing scenery!  I did not have any unexpected issues.  I topped off my trip with a 3 day stay in Nha Trang and I had a great time on a boat trip, snorkeling, and sitting on the beautiful beach.