During the trip, I will be a part of a team of pediatric colorectal surgical experts who have had experience traveling all over the world to operate on pediatric patients with common congenital colorectal anomalies. Working with the local pediatric surgeons, nurses, and other operative staff, the hope is to be able to teach and offer the experience of dealing with these anomalies so that patients may have successful operations and appropriate functional outcomes.
First and foremost, the children and their families in Vietnam will be the intended population. Specifically, I aim to improve the care and management of patients with congenital colorectal anomalies. I am of Vietnamese descent and was also born with an anorectal malformation. Having experienced the struggles as a patient myself, this trip is special to me because I get to utilize my experience as a patient turned doctor to be able to give back to the people of my own cultural background.
One of my goals is for the providers that we work with during this trip to come away with newfound knowledge, perspective, and technical skills that will make them better overall healers for the children of Vietnam, especially for the ones with colorectal anomalies. In addition, I know that, not only will I learn so much from the organization team led by a world-renowned pediatric colorectal expert like Dr. Levitt, but I will also gain many new skills and knowledge from the providers and patients of Vietnam. I believe it is important to see how medicine and surgery work outside of the United States, the unique barriers they may encounter, and the solutions that they have developed. In this way, I can then come back to my training program and share this with my teachers, colleagues, co-residents, and other learners.
During our time in Vietnam, we were able to operate on the patients with the most complex congenital colorectal anomalies. This required the expertise of the pediatric colorectal surgeons as well as our gynecology and urology colleagues. In addition to the teachings provided from a technical standpoint, we were also able to discuss the postoperative care involving bowel management, wound care, and ostomy care. As a patient-turned-surgeon-in-training with Vietnamese roots, this trip as meant the world to me. I got to experience, firsthand, the dedication, resilience, passion, and care that the patients and providers of Ho Chi Minh and Children's Hospital 1 possess. I have learned so much from my CTO colleagues and the local providers of Vietnam.
