Through this international rotation, I will be at VinUni National Children's Hospital and VinMec Hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam.
As a pediatric hospital medicine fellow, I am board certified in General Pediatrics and board-eligible for Pediatric Hospital Medicine (PHM). I intend to work alongside pediatric attendings and residents at VinUni on their inpatient pediatric rotations, primarily participating in clinical duties and patient care (as an observer). I hope to work on developing inpatient pediatric educational opportunities for learners through clinical teaching points on the wards and dedicated didactic sessions on topics of interest. I will also be working on a sustainable academic project based on the needs of the trainees and faculty at VinUni to promote quality improvement interests at their hospitals. I will also be focusing on a perspectives academic project for myself to understand healthcare in a resource-limited setting (in comparison the United States) and how sociocultural expectations of healthcare and doctors translate to approaches to healthcare in the US by Vietnamese immigrants.
I will be primarily serving the pediatric population at National Children's Hospital, which is a 2,000 bed free standing children's hospital, along with the pediatric population at VinMec, a private hospital that is part of VinGroup. The pediatric population is within the scope of my practice.
With my research and educational efforts, I will be serving the pediatric faculty and trainees at VinUniversity to add to the academic rigor and medical education of their pediatric training program(s). The pediatric trainees are within my scope of practice as a current pediatric hospital medicine fellow (who oversees residents & works with faculty), along with my goals of working within the academic health system.
As an Indian-American, I come from a multicultural background, and have an interest in learning how healthcare experiences in other countries lends to immigrant/refugees' experiences with the US healthcare system. As a pediatrician working in a multicultural community, I also strive to understand common medical conditions seen in other parts of the world to better understand how to treat them. Through this opportunity, it will allow me to better serve Vietnamese-speaking patients and families (a large community in Minnesota), while also building my knowledge of optimal pediatric clinical care when resources are limited.
With this opportunity, I would love to work alongside local health care staff to provide quality health care to communities and gain understanding of local medical conditions to understand sociocultural influences and to improve my future practice as a pediatric hospitalist. I also value bidirectional, sustainable partnerships and augmenting education/teaching/mentorship at multiple levels, which is line with VinUni's goals of creating better higher education. Additionally, I believe that the interpersonal relationships, team dynamics, and clinical knowledge and skills we will share and build as a team will also allow for more positive growth as pediatricians for myself and my Vietnamese colleagues.
On my last day in Hanoi, I was already filled with feelings of nostalgia and longing to come back again and work with the medical staff in National Children's Hospital and Vinmec International Hospital. As I am a second year Pediatric Hospital Medicine fellow, I spent the majority of my time on the inpatient wards at Vinmec International Hospital and the Infectious Disease wards and ICU at National Children's Hospital. In each one of these settings, I was interacting with pediatric residents, medical students, nurses, attendings, visiting medical students, and visiting nursing students. Therefore, there were many opportunities to not only for getting to know the local staff, but also for collective teaching and learning as a group during patient care. Thursday and Friday afternoons were also dedicated didactics, which gave me more opportunities to learn from cases presentation or journal club by the pediatric residents.
In the inpatient wards at Vinmec and at National Children's Hospital, I was functioning as a consultant. With the pediatric residents and medical students, we would care for sick patients with varied complaints, mostly infectious (bronchiolitis, pneumonia, acute otitis media, tuberculosis, measles, pertussis, rabies, etc), neurologic (seizures, neuropathy, myopathy), malnutrition, and acute management of burns. The majority usually would get admitted to the wards due to their acuity. There were many procedures that I observed, including burn care management, lumbar punctures, and intubation. I additionally participated in rounds for the patients who were in the Infectious Disease ICU at National Children's Hospital or admitted to the pediatric acute wards at Vinmec Hospital shortly after their admission. This was an opportunity to interact with the attendings and collectively learn as well.
Overall, the stages of disease progression, the pathology, and disease types were different than what I have encountered before during clinical care, so I learned a lot from the residents and attendings for some of the cases. It was also interesting to see how the Vietnamese interacted with their doctors and viewed healthcare, a perspective that I will take back with me when caring for Vietnamese families. Most patients primarily spoke Vietnamese, so I often received help from staff to understand medical diagnoses, care plans, and parents' concerns. Educationally, I often collaborated with attendings and residents to demonstrate comparisons between US medical care and Vietnamese medical care to understand where similarities and differences existed. I also participated in the didactic sessions, often mentioning clinical management pearls or guidelines (as relevant) to help broaden residents' knowledge and management as physicians.
I have an interest in Global Health education, sustainability, and local Global health. I look forward to using the lessons learned in Hanoi to provide more equitable care for my Vietnamese patients and families. Additionally, I have been collaborating with faculty at VinUni to assess how we can strengthen the bidirectional parternership between VinUni and UMN. I look forward to when the VinUni faculty and residents will be able to come to the University of Minnesota on a global health rotation. Thank you Doximity Foundation for funding the airfare for this trip, which was a great help!
