Travelogue: Vietnam Part II - The Volunteering

Day 1:

First day of placement, we met some of the key staff e.g. doctors, head nurses etc. I was placed in Children's Physiotherapy and OT for the day. It was really fun, although saddening at the same time, to see so many children born into hardship. However, they don't let their disabilities dampen their spirits, so I shouldn't either. Honestly, children are what make me believe the better is possible. They embody so much courage and resilience, every day having to go through pain to repair/improve their disabilities. Also, language barriers were never a problem with children, which I also liked, because it made communication and understanding so much easier. They speak to you through emotions and actions. My role their just involved assisting the physios with exercises and stretches. While in the afternoon I helped next door in OT going through basic skills e.g. making puzzles or moving blocks from one box to another. In Vietnam they don't actually have OT as a occupation, rather, the physios in this particular hospital are taught by OT students from James Cook Uni who do placement there every year. It really made me appreciate the work that Allied Health provide, they truly are irreplaceable.

Day 2:

Monday was spent in Acupuncture. Unlike in Australia, many Asian nations incorporate acupuncture as mainstream medicine. I learnt a bit about pressure points and what effect certain parts of the body create. I was able to assist in removing needles and also had the opportunity to have acupuncture done on myself. For the skeptics out there, although it might not work on everything, please don't discredit it for not being 100% foolproof, nothing in life is. I also gave my first injections in a very long time, I could see my hand just trembling, but the patients were all so calm and tolerant. Many of the patient's that sought treatment suffered from Bell's Palsy, which I found interesting, because we were never taught that as a treatment method.  

Day 3:

My third day was spent in Wound Care aka. Minor Surgery and the Trauma Ward. The staff here are involved mainly in cleaning wounds, redoing dressings, repairing any external fixtures e.g. braces or casts. In the Minor Surgery room we saw a small child come in to have his dressing on his foot changed. He cried so much upon entering the room cos he knew what was going to happen and then once he left, he stopped, shows just how intuitive we can be from such a little age. P.s. he was ultra adorable. Other people we saw included more wound dressing. The last patient we saw was the most interesting. It was a young male who had a cast around his leg, instead of external fixtures, to help straighten his leg out and what they were doing today was lengthening out the cast and re-positioning it. So this involved cutting open the cast near the near and then just pushing the two halves apart by placing pieces of cardboard in between. You gotta give it to them for being resourceful. The man wailed quite a bit while this was done and the nurses were so mean, calling him a baby :( Also, no one believed me that the saw doesn't cut through skin and I guess the nurse understood and let us all try it on our skin.

In the trauma ward we saw a lot more horrific injuries from MVA and workplace accidents, there were some amputees, many wounds and braces. Apparently this was the first time volunteers were allowed into this section of the hospital. I guess it is more gruesome and critical than other wards that are mainly recovery and rehab focused. I was allowed to assist the nurses with some of the cleaning and bandage changes, but some of them are pretty harsh and say no. There is this one kid who was always in the room with his dad, as his grandmother was an in patient. He grew really attached to one of the med students and just brought joy to everyone in the ward. His grandma actually got operated on while I was in the surgery room.

Day 4:

So, today we went into surgery in the morning, got changed and all, only to be told there were no surgeries that morning...so instead we visited the trauma ward.  I was given the opportunity to clean some wounds, this one guy had external braces supporting his hips and legs, after injuries sustained at work, when a truck hit him. He had these deep open wounds around the area, like several cm of flesh, and when asked if he was in pain, he said it was horrible, yet he always had a straight face. Is seriously humbling to see the courage and resilience of some people. He never even flinched while I was cleaning his wounds, and I can't even deal with getting splinters removed.

Finally in the afternoon we donned our scrubs and slippers on, and finally got to see some surgery. The first operation I saw was a man with a clavicle fracture that they had to put back in place with rods. Then there were a few more patients with broken bones, but I ended the day watching a skin graft and it was amazing. They manage to cut a piece of skin as fine as tissue and that little piece will heal a wound and replace the skin originally lost.

Day 5:

A full day in surgery today, I don't know how surgeons manage to stand for hours during major surgeries, I need a break like every 30 minutes. Also I would like to comment on the constant concern I had over everyone wearing sandals, like the slippers you where at home, in the surgery room, without socks. Also the way they put their sterile gloves on, makes them unsterile but I don't think they thought that through. Apart from that their standards were a lot higher than I expected and their facilities are really quite advanced. Moving on to the actually surgeries, today we saw a lot more skin grafts, this one man had a major necrotic wound on the balls of his foot. I don't know how it came to that, but the surgeons were just picking away all the dead material and cleaning it before placing the skin graft on. Note to self: never injure your foot and never get neuropathy if it can be helped. 

Day 6:

My last day at placement had arrived :( Had surgery again in the morning. We got changed and were about to walk into the surgery room when one of the assistance started yelling at us. Turns out they were using some sort of scanner, couldn't catch the name but was a big crescent shape thing. We had to wear on these heavy, I assume metal insulated apron things to block the radiation, but only our chests were protected =O We then saw a few more surgeries including knee ligament tears, a child came in needing wound care, some more skin grafts and collar bone fractures. Met some more surgeons and had some interesting conversations. Then it was all over, so sad to leave this all behind.