Screenings, Pizza Hut, and New Year's Eve

Here's the sunrise over the Mekong River this morning (around 620a)...it was a lovely 80 degrees or so + lots of humidity!

 

Today was our first day working at the general hospital here in Can Tho.  You know it's an adult/general hospital when you see Bien Vien Da Khoa and today we arrived to start our screenings.  The general hospital's orthopedic surgeons are the doctors we work with and the hospital places advertisements in the local print newspapers and on television advertising the arrival of the International Extremity Project (IEP).  Since our last trip here in 2007, Dr. Em (a local orthopedist) is now in-charge at the hospital and he and his staff had done lots of pre-screening of patients to make sure we were seeing patients that have conditions our surgeons can best help.

Advertisment for our mission, located in the hospital

So, today, we screened 42 patients (28 in the morning, 14 after lunch) and I believe, 18 surgeries are planned as a result.  We will complete 30-40 more screenings (I've been told...I just simply show-up!) on Wednesday, the 2nd, and the team's plan is to do up to 40 surgeries in-total.  This, if accomplished or needed, would be the largest number of surgeries the team has done during 1 mission.

Our team consists of 5 foot/ankle surgeons from the San Francisco Bay area, 1 orthopedic surgeon from Israel, and 2 surgical residents.  My role is to collaborate with these surgeons and provide another point-of-view to ensure we are considering not only correction of the patient's deformity (how the surgery can make their foot look nice), but also (and quite importantly) considering the functional pros and cons of doing the recommended procedure.  The great thing for our team now is that we have been working as a solid team for 4 missions now (since 2004) and so it's a really smooth collaboration and I love the role I play within that collaboration.  It was great to hear on several occasions today the surgeons really considering the functional implications of their recommendations!!  Makes a PT kind of proud!  :)

Here's some photos from today's screenings...

Nurses and doctors helping a new patient after they have seen our team.

Jeff Spanko, surgeon, and our many observers working with a patient.

Me, explaining about a specific deformity to Flecher, our videographer and documentary filmmaker.

Sahra, surgical resident, and TeTe, our main translator, talking with a patient, a young lady who had polio and who now has foot/ankle deformity as a result.

 This is Flecher, our videographer, riding his rented scooter to the hospital this morning.  Vietnam now has helmet laws...so we were glad to see him wearing a helmet.  Several others in the group were thinking of renting scooters for transport!  :)  It's quite an adventure being on a scooter here in Vietnam...kind of like riding in a video game.

 Amy (in the green shirt) coordinates all of the intake of all of the screening patients.  She, with a few helpers, creates a massive spreadsheet, creates medical records for each patient and then takes a set of pictures of the patient, their lower extremities and then a video of their gait pattern.  This is a monumental task and she does a fantastic job coordinating this effort!!!

Some of the patients waiting to be seen by the doctors.  This is after we had seen about 1/2 of the patients, so looks a little more manageable in terms of numbers of folks waiting.   The hospital is fully open-air, so everyone is sitting outside and we are working only with fans in our small exam rooms (with loads of people).

A returning patient with Cerebral Palsy, who is 16-17 years old.  He was seen in 2010 and had a significant bilateral lower extremity surgery, including hamstring lengthenings and several different things done to his foot/ankle to re-align his lower extremities.  At that time he was non-ambulatory and could not stand-up without 2 people helping him to do so.

This is him today...he is independent with ambulation and standing and was just fantastic to see how proud of himself he was that he could walk and move.  He is fairly cognitively impaired, but was shaking everyone's hands and giving a thumbs-up, after Amy taught him how to do this, and his family was just so pleased with his outcome.

Here are his legs (see picture above).  So great looking and his functional improvement is just incredible!  There were several teary IEP members upon seeing how wonderful he looked and how happy he and his family were with his outcome.

I have a great video of him walking, but have to figure out how to rotate it so you all won't have to rotate your computers to watch it.  So...more to come later!!

A little 3 month old baby girl who's mom was worried about her feet.  Good news is that her feet are just fine, as is she!!  I love her little mittens on her hands, which is a very common thing to see on babies here in Vietnam.  :)

A little girl ~ about 7-8 years old ~ who was affected by polio as a baby.  Polio is now eradicated in Vietnam, but only recently.   She will have surgery with the team during this mission trip to correct her foot/ankle deformity.

Cutie little girl ~ love her braided pigtails ~ who has Cerebral Palsy.  She will come to see Amy and me when we are at the Can Tho Children's Hospital next week, so we can give her family some things to work on with her at home.  She was very social and smiley and really liked getting candy from us!!

Discussion of how to correct this young man's foot/ankle deformity.

This young girl is about 10 years old.  She was seen by the team in 2010 (when she was 8) and they did corrective surgeries to both of her feet as she had been affected by polio as a baby.  Prior to her surgery she was not able to attend school, as she couldn't walk the 2km to/from her home to school.

This is her today ~ love her snazzy shoes!!!  She is now able to attend school because of the surgery and her mom reported she is the 'best in her class!'  This is a significant outcome for this girl and her family, as in Vietnam, if you cannot walk to school, you do not get educated.  She was just lovely and so sweet!!  Makes me smile to know she can go to school every day and that she LOVES it!!

Little baby who was born with an extra toe on each foot.  This will be surgically removed.  She was so beautiful and had the most soul-full eyes I have seen in such a small baby!!

This patient has syndactyly, which basically means some of the bones of her foot are fused together.  She has difficulty wearing shoes, as you can imagine, so they will be able to do a corrective surgery that will bring her toes more into a close alignment, allowing her to comfortable wear shoes.  

This is a bamboo cane a gentleman who had polio brought with him today.  I have a video of him walking, but again have to figure out how to rotate it.  I will post it asap!!  It's just amazing.

One of my favorite things about the folks I have met in Vietnam is their ingenuity, as they have shown me their incredible creativity time and time again.  The video of this gentleman walking will demonstrate this beautifully!!

This is the gentleman who made the bamboo cane above.  Again, I will post his video a little later.  His right leg is affected by polio and his left leg is all he has to rely-upon when walking.

He is in his 40s.

This young lady was around 14-15 years old.  Her lower extremities and feet were burned when she was 1 year old.  Her deformities are due to the scarring she developed after the burns were sustained.  Because we do not have a plastic surgeon with our group, it was decided to not do any surgery for her at this time.  This is a frustrating reality for our docs and for me...we cannot help everyone.

Significant deformity of her right foot due to polio.  She will have surgery to correct her foot position so that she can walk with it flat on the ground, instead of walking on the top of her foot.


Again, I have video of her walking.  Will post later.

 Jeff Spanko (standing) and Meir Nyska (sitting) collaborating during the screenings.

Bruce Lehnert (in white shirt) with Jeff and Meir discussing a plan.










For those who love food pictures...here's a few from lunch, provided to us by the lovely ladies in the cafeteria at the hospital.

Spring rolls, Beef with vegetable, green beans with shrimp and later morning glory (green vegetable) soup

Spring rolls...yummy!!!

After the conclusion of our work day ~ we finished around 230p (which is super-early for us), we were invited by the orthopedic surgeons from the hospital for a reception to welcome us to the hospital, which was reportedly to have cake and coffees ~ aka in Vietnam Caphe Sua Da.  Caphe Sua Da is coffee over ice with sweetened condensed milk poured over the top and stirred.  I am not a coffee drinker, but it does look delicious!

When we arrived for the reception, the long table was filled with bottles of Coke and we were served Pizza Hut pizza which had different types based upon where were are right now.  So, the pizzas were mostly Seafood Pizza with black pepper, Seafood Pizza with Pesto and there was 1 pepperoni pizza too.  It was just lovely and one of the surgeons said to us, "Just like in the USA."  Awesome!!  I have never had pizza with calamari and crab and salmon on it (plus pineapple), but it was alright...interesting, but alright.

Seafood Pizza + Coke

Pizza Hut in Vietnam...wow!

Bruce...looking like he might have had too much Coke

Seafood Pizza

Since tonight is New Year's Eve here ~ given the time difference ~ our coordinator, Henry, has planned a party for us!  The location of the party is secret and so we are to meet in the lobby of the hotel at 730p, as the party starts at 8p and ends at 1a.  It's apparently a 5-course dinner with a band and a singer.  This should be so interesting and just a riot!!  Not sure I'll make it the whole time, but it should be fun, nonetheless.  I am guessing there will be some karaoke as well (a Vietnamese tradition), so we'll see how it goes.

Happy New Year to all!!  I hope 2013 brings you and your families and friends wonderful experiences and adventures, as well as great health and happiness!!

Happy New Year sign cantilevered over the main street in Can Tho

Chuc Mung Nam Moi!!!

xoxo
Stacy