I have been invited to give lectures on hand and finger fractures and the management of tendon injuries at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Hand Surgery Association of Ho Chi Minh City in the session, ‘Advances in Reconstructive Hand Surgery’. In addition to this meeting, my colleagues and I will visit Hospital 175 in Ho Chi Minh City and continue the longstanding surgical collaboration with the surgeons and staff at Hospital 175. We will follow up the patients on which we have previously operated, we will give lectures and participate in case discussions, we will teach (in clinic and the operating room) the surgeon trainees, and we will learn from the Vietnamese surgeons and staff. As a combined surgical and educational visit, we believe our presence will make a great difference not only for the patients for whom we care but the surgeons and staff we train. By not just teaching surgical skills, we are able to build capacity and teach principles, of surgery, research, and quality improvement that can be carried forward and taught to multiple other surgeons and staff in the hospital and community, thus leveraging our impact and benefiting patients across Vietnam.
This grant will help educate surgeons and hospital staff members from Hospital 175. Hospital 175 is one of the major trauma hospitals in Vietnam and serves a great majority of the population of Ho Chi Minh City and the surrounding region. As a referral hospital, the catchment area of Hospital 175 is vast. As such, a large number of patients will benefit from this project. As we will be teaching and conducting capacity building activities, our impact will be much greater than only those with whom we interact in person. We will be working with surgeons and staff members who will be able to take the skills and knowledge learned and bring this back to their communities. This hospital and population were chosen given the ongoing collaboration and partnership we have with Hospital 175. Post-operative follow up is critically important to surgical care, as is continuing in person lectureship and collaboration to build capacity and leverage our impact.
We intend to continue our partnership with Hospital 175 and strengthen our relationship especially after COVID 19. We have continued virtual collaboration but nothing is stronger than in person lectureship, hands on teaching, and collaboration. We intend to strengthen research and quality improvement infrastructure such that the surgeons and staff members at Hospital 175 can carry these efforts forward independent of our collaboration. The impact of our lectures and teaching are expected to be great. The capacity building nature of this collaboration will leverage our impact as each surgeon and staff member will in turn not only care for multiple patients but also train many others surgeons and staff members. We strongly believe that instilling not only surgeon skills but principles of surgery, research, and quality improvement will allow us to have the greatest impact such that benefits of our visit continue long after we leave.
We gave presentations at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Hand Surgery Association of Ho Chi Minh City. This was attended by surgeons across Vietnam who treat patients and train trainees throughout the country, thus the impact of this trip was broad.
