I will work with the pediatric faculty to improve medical simulation training in the pediatric emergency department at National Children’s Hospital, the largest free standing children’s hospital in Laos. Additionally, I will work with the oldest and largest hospital, Mahosot Hospital, to improve care for adults with infectious diseases.
The primary population served will be children and adults in the capital city, Vientiane, in Laos. Vientiane has a population of approximately 1 million people. The children brought to the emergency department, particularly with severe illness will benefit significantly. Additionally, adults with infectious diseases that land them in the hospital will also benefit.
The head of the largest pediatric only emergency room requested assistance with improving the simulation training for emergencies for all staff in their emergency department. We aim to improve the ability for the doctors and nurses to appropriately follow international guidelines and the speed with which they can implement these guidelines over a series of illnesses.
Additionally, I will be bringing an adult infectious disease fellow from Minnesota, whose family left Laos during the civil war. He will partner with the infectious disease doctors at Mahosot Hospital, the largest adult hospital. Together they will care for adults with infectious disease, and work to start a career long relationships. He hopes to continue to work in Laos long after finishing his fellowship.
It was lovely to reconnect with my former residents and to meet new residents. I previously was the residency coordinator for Health Frontiers. As such I worked with the Lao government and the Lao University of Health Sciences to improve their residency programs in pediatrics and internal medicine, where we had 30 residents each. Since I left in 2018, we've helped support several residents to go on to fellowship training in Thailand.
I was able to visit with several of the fellowship graduates and learn about their current practices and needs.
I also rotated with the current residents assisting with difficulty cases and training in ultrasound.
Importantly, I worked with the University to help get them better access to reference materials. With several of my former residents having completed fellowship, they are now some of the most experienced doctors in the country, but do not have access to journal articles, etc. as they did when they were in fellowship.
So would spend my mornings rounding with the current residents, and I'd spend the afternoons getting my previous residents connected to HINARI and UpToDate and other donated resources.
In the pictures you can see me working with two current pediatric residents on ultrasound skills. I worked with the residents and then helped as they taught the medical students.
A separate picture is of a medical student and resident presenting a complicated case during rounds. The last picture is of me participating in a case presentation to a room full of 4th and 6th year medical students by one of the current residents.
Additionally, I presented with a Lao colleague to the heads of all the wards in one hospital on Quality Improvement practices, introducing important concepts to help improve patient care.
