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| White-clad nurses carrying vaccines into the Da Nang hospital. |
Central Viet Nam seemed like the perfect fit, so I emailed the US Embassy here several months ago to introduce myself and ask if they knew any doctors that I could work with. They replied with the contact information of nearly every licensed physician in the region. I pretty much went down the list and cold called places that looked like they might be a good fit. Everyone I got ahold of was very receptive, so I chose from the sites that I thought I might actually be able to help with.
Global health is a tricky beast. Well-intentioned physicians from economically advanced nations have been trying to improve the health of people overseas since at least the 1600s, likely earlier. Some projects lend themselves nicely to drop-in medicine (infectious disease outbreaks, hurricane relief), but most don't. The good news is that fewer people worldwide are succumbing to infectious disease, complications of childbirth, or injuries. But now they are increasingly suffering from complications of diabetes, or having strokes in their 40s or 50s. Health systems in the developing world aren't set up to handle this, and the World Health Organization has made improving their capacity to care for these Non-commuicable (non-infectious) diseases a major priority.
One of the major reasons that I chose the project in Hoi An is that it was conceived and is being managed by a local physician. It's far too common for, again, well-intentioned organizations to steamroll over the local health system to put something in place that they feel is better. These new, "better" systems tend to fall apart as soon as the outside money dries up. But this project is locally driven, with backing from a US Non-profit and technical support from the World Health Organization. I will be working to help quantify exactly how many people are affected by non-communicable diseases, and lead training sessions for local physicians. Our early goal is to perform the research that will show the severity of the problem, and start the discussion about what can be done to help mitigate it. After that is done, our local partners can apply to the Vietnamese Health Ministry for long term funding and support.
But that will happen over the next several weeks to months. First, I need to get to Da Nang. When I first approached the organization that I'll be working with, their office was in Hoi An. They moved to the regional capital of Da Nang a few months ago to better communicate with the local health officials. By then, I had already rented a house in Hoi An, which might have been a problem if Hoi An wasn't so unbelievable pretty or if this wasn't my commute.
So I hailed a cab and made my way to Da Nang. I met with Dr. Quang, my counterpart here, and we mapped out our goals for the next several weeks and beyond. He speaks beautiful English, but he appreciated that I had made an effort to learn some Vietnamese before I came here (thank you, Rosetta Stone). We were also joined by Matthias, our German college student intern. It was a great first meeting, and I'm excited about what we can accomplish.
After our meeting, I grabbed a cup of ca phe and some bun on the street corner, and started to feel a bit less like a tourist. I also felt like there's no way I'm ever wearing a long sleeve shirt and slacks again in this country.
When I arrived in Hoi An that afternoon, Aimee and I compared notes on how we spent our first day apart. Not surprisingly, Aimee's day was essentially a continuous stream of people falling in love with our baby.
