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WINTER 2007
CONTENTS
History of the Bach Mai Hosptial Project
Gregory and Sandy Burfitt Visit Bach Mai Hospital
St. Anthony's Central Specialty Nurses Traing Vietnamese Counterparts
Bach Mai Hospital Team Meets With American Dignitaries
St. Anthony's Hospital Bio-Engineer Joins Bach Mai Hospital Program
New Book Attracts Donors For Bach Mai Hospital Project
Mayo Clinic Joins With Bach Mai Hospital Project
Program Doctor Has Busy Schedule
Toxicologist Find New Role in Vietnam
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EDITOR/PROJECT DIRECTOR
Carl E. Bartecchi, M.D.
ckbartecchi@comcast.net
Director of Fund Development
John Covert
Mayo Clinic coordinator
Robert Joyce
Hanoi coordinator
Dang Thi Xuan, M.D.
PROJECT SPONSORS
ST. ANTHONY’S HOSPITALS AND HEALTH FOUNDATION
CENTURA HEALTH
CATHOLIC HEALTH INITIATIVES (CHI)
GLOBAL HEALTH INITIATIVES
BACH MAI HOSPITAL PROJECT BENEFITS FROM PRIVATE DONORS
Major contributions from private donors and groups have benefited the Bach Mai Hospital Project. These donations have been used for the educational programs for the Vietnamese physicians or for much needed medical equipment. These donations do not include physician donations, as they pay their own travel, and room expenses. Major donors for 2007 are as follows:
1.Shirley Weindling, Pueblo
2.Ben Weindling, Pueblo
3.Sandra Dallas, Denver
4.Opal Freeman, Pueblo
5.Mark H. Carson, Boulder
6.Robert H. Rawlings, Pueblo
7.Scranton Prep, Class of 1956
8.David and Aileen Epstein, Charlotte, NC
9.Dr. Sallie Watkins, Pueblo West
10.Robert W. Schrier, M.D., Denver
CORPORATE AND FOUNDATION DONORS
1.Biosite, Inc.
2.Pulmonetic Systems
3.Olympus America, Inc.
4.Doctors Research Group, Inc.
5.Ardent Sound, Inc.
6.Global Health Initiatives (CHI)
7.Philips Foundation
8.St. Anthony Health Foundation
9.Colorado State Mental Hospital
CONGRATULATIONS JOHN COVERT
John Covert, Development Officer for the St. Anthony Health Foundation has just been promoted. He will assume the role of Director of the Capital Campaign for the St. Anthony Health Foundation. John has done an outstanding job for the Bach Mai Hospital Project. John is our valued administrator, key fundraiser, day to day supervisor of our visiting Vietnamese physicians, finance person, grant writer and contact person for all the different entities that are involved with the Project.
John is the contact person for anyone wishing to donate to the Bach Mai Hospital Project.
He can be reached at:
John S. Convert
St. Anthony Health Foundation
4231 W. 16th Avenue
Denver, CO 80204
johncovert@centura.org
Phone: 303-629-4561 |
History of The Bach Mai Hospital Project
The Bach Mai Hospital Project had its beginnings in 1997. Dr. Carl Bartecchi, a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and a Vietnam War veteran, traveled to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City as a Visiting Professor of Critical Care Medicine. He lectured and worked as an attending physician at the Cho Rae Hospital and the Bach Mai Hospital. His positive experiences working with the faculty and students at the Bach Mai Hospital resulted in repeated visits, once or twice yearly, working and teaching at the Bach Mai Hospital.
Recognizing a need for sophisticated medical equipment and medical textbooks for the Intensive Care Units, he began programs to secure such equipment and texts from suppliers and through foundation grants. With the help of the Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) Colorado Foundation and its president, Jay Maloney, the program expanded and assumed a 501c3 status and significant administrative support.
Seeing that the medical educational needs of the massive Bach Mai Hospital (1400 beds and 2200 patients) could not be met by one or two week teaching efforts, the program chose to bring talented Vietnamese physicians to the U.S. for advanced training in Critical Care Medicine, Emergency Medicine and Toxicology, with the goal of returning these physicians to Vietnam as teachers of their specialty area of medicine. By the end of 2007, 12 physicians will have received from 6 months to 3 years of training, funded by the program. The returning physicians have proven to be a valuable addition to the academic medical teaching program for the entire country of Vietnam.
In 2004, the St Anthony’s Hospital in Denver, Colorado assumed a prominent role in the Bach Mai Hospital Project, becoming a “sister hospital” to the Bach Mai Hospital, the latter’s first such arrangement. Supported by Centura Health and CHI, parent organizations , significant funding was made available through Global Health Initiatives, to fund the training of increased numbers of Vietnamese physicians at St. Anthony’s Hospitals, University of Colorado Hospital and other Colorado hospitals. The program also began attracting significant funds from private donors attracted to the program’s teaching goals and it’s efforts to improve medical care for the poor of Vietnam.
By the end of 2007, numerous large corporations had contributed repeated gifts of medical equipment to the Project – Hewlett Packard, Agilent, Philips, Olympus, Respironics, Biosite, Doctor’s Research Group, to name but a few. Almost all Medical Book Publishing Companies contributed textbooks to the program, significantly improving the specialty libraries of the Bach Mai Hospital. Financial help was received from numerous foundations – SC Ministry Foundation, CHI Colorado Foundation, The Franciscan Fund, Vincentian Congregation of the Mission Fund, and World Medical Relief. Numerous hospitals and service clubs have also made significant contributions.
In 2007, the Mayo Clinic joined the Bach Mai Hospital Project, training physicians at their Rochester MN facility and sending teachers to lecture at the Bach Mai Hospital. The Mayo Clinic joined our other partner training programs from the University of Colorado Medical School, Denver Health and Hospitals, and the Michigan State University program at Kalamazoo, in our stateside teaching effort.
In 2007, recognizing a need for training specialty teaching nurses at the Bach Mai Hospital and throughout Vietnam, our program began sending teaching nurses to Hanoi, to train their nurses. Also in 2007, recognizing a need for individuals at the Bach Mai Hospital to be able to maintain and repair sophisticated medical equipment, we sent a BioMedical engineer to the Bach Mai Hospital to begin a BioMed Engineering program there, with a goal of training their staff in that specialty and bringing their technicians to Denver for advanced training and training as a teacher of that specialty.
The goal of the Bach Mai Hospital Project is to train increasing numbers of young Vietnamese physicians and nurses as teachers of the already mentioned specialties, and eventually, other important medical specialties. At the same time, we strive to provide these specialists with the equipment, medications, books and educational equipment that will allow them to be successful in their teaching efforts. We feel that training Vietnamese physicians to be effective and efficient providers of medical care, with continuous updating of their knowledge base and skills, will allow the physicians “in the trenches” to improve the health of the Vietnamese people, especially those far removed from the centers of care.
We maintain a staff person at the Bach Mai Hospital to provide ongoing assistance with the management of the program, and have a Critical Care Medicine specialist who spends one week every two months training the young Vietnamese physicians in the Bach Mai ICU. The most recent addition to our teaching program is the presentation of symposia dealing with specialty medicine subjects. In October 2007, in conjunction with the Mayo Clinic, we presented a symposium on Emergency Medicine that was supported by Mayo Clinic and University of Colorado Medical School specialists. The plan is for a similar medical symposia every six months. We are also interested in helping various Bach Mai Hospital units become more efficient and effective. In 2007, we enlisted a consulting organization - Lean Transformations, to help the Emergency Department at the Bach Mai Hospital become better able to care for the large volume of difficult problems that it encounters.
Another of our goals is to generate more funds to allow us to train even more Vietnamese physicians and nurses as teachers.
Gregory and Sandy Burfitt Visit Bach Mai Hospital
Greg (standing) and Sandy meeting with Bach Mai Hospital Administrator
Gregory Burfitt, President and CEO of Centura Health and his wife Sandy, a Pulmonary Specialist Nurse, accompanied the October, 07’ visit to the Bach Mai Hospital. Greg and Sandy have had many years of experience working with the medical and social problems of developing countries around the world. They have contributed personally and financially to help the less fortunate of those countries. Many of the problems at the Bach Mai Hospital were similar to those that they had experienced during their missionary experiences. Following their thorough review of the problems at the Bach Mai Hospital, each, according to their area of expertise, was able to offer suggestions on how we might further assist that hospital in overcoming the myriad of challenges that it faces on a daily basis.
St. Anthony's Central Specialty Nurses Traing Vietnamese Counterparts
Nurses and Dr. Co during rare period of leisure.
Three St. Anthony ICU teaching nurses, Barbara Ann Peterman, Karen Claire Ferguson and Sharon Rae Becker, shown in the picture with Dr. Dao Xuan Co, during one of their few leisure periods, spent the month of March working and teaching at the Bach Mai Hospital. Their goal was to introduce the concept of specialty care nurses to the ICU, ER and Poison Control Center, and begin a nurse specialist training program in those areas. The success of their effort was apparent from the many requests for their return to continue assisting those units. The three nurses will help provide teaching for the Chief Nurse of the Bach Mai ICU, who will come to St. Anthony’s ICU for six months of training, next summer. Dr. Co is presently finishing his 6 months of training at the St. Anthony’s ICU.
Bach Mai Hospital Team Meets With American Dignitaries
During past visits to Hanoi, the Bach Mai Hospital Project team met with then U. S. Ambassador Marine. During our October 07’ visit, we met with the new U.S. Ambassador Michalak. These visits are mainly courtesy visits, but prove most helpful in getting visas for our visiting doctors, and other forms of assistance that one requires when visiting a foreign country frequently. Ambassador Michalak also agreed to point in our direction individuals or groups looking to help Vietnamese medical programs. The Embassy Health Attache, Michael Iademarco, M.D. has worked closely with us for the past three years. We also meet regularly with Nguyen Thi Xuyen, M.D., Ph.D, Vice Minister of Health for Vietnam, and Tran Thuy Hanh, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Bach Mai Hospital and wife of the Minister of Health. These contacts have been most helpful in allowing us the opportunities to achieve the goals that we have set for our Bach Mai Program.
St. Anthony's Hospital Bio-Engineer Joins Bach Mai Hospital Program
Brian Wilson, a bio-medical engineer with Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) and based at St. Anthony’s Central Hospital joined the team that visited the Bach Mai Hospital in October, 07’. The need for Brian’s expertise was apparent from prior visits to the Bach Mai Hospital. Brian’s goal was to teach the maintenance of the high-tech medical equipment that we were bringing to that hospital, and also, how to repair such equipment. We asked Brian to initiate a bio-medical engineering department at the Bach Mai Hospital. Brian impressed the Bach Mai staff with his skill in fixing complex machines. He found seven ventilators that were non-functional because of a simple part that could easily be replaced. He is sending that part to them and will make available to them seven seriously needed ventilators. In the summer of 08’ we will bring a technician from the Bach Mai to St. Anthony’s to study with Brian and return to Bach Mai to teach others.
New Book Attracts Donors For Bach Mai Hospital Project
Dr. Bartecchi’s new book, A DOCTOR’S VIETNAM JOURNAL, has to date raised over $20,000.00 from royalties and gifts from readers. All proceeds from the book go directly to the Bach Mai Hospital Project. The book discusses in detail the Bach Mai Hospital Project and its early beginnings. The book and it’s reviews made readers aware of the Project and the assistance that was being provided for the Vietnamese. Many readers, some of whom were Vietnam War Veterans, found the Project to be a reasonable and sustainable way to help the Vietnamese.
Mayo Clinic Joins With Bach Mai Hospital Project
Attendees at Emergency Medicine Symposium
Dr. Bartecchi’s negotiations with Mayo Hospital Administrator, Robert Joyce, have resulted in a wonderful academic relationship with that Institution. In September of 07’ we were able to send two of our Vietnamese physicians to the Mayo Clinic for advanced training in Critical Care and Emergency Medicine. Doctors Co and Ton were delighted with their Mayo experience. We plan to have similar rotations at the Mayo Clinic for all our Vietnamese visiting physicians.
Prominent Mayo faculty members, Tom Meloy, M.D. and David Klocke, M.D. were key lecturers at our first Symposium on Emergency Medicine. The Symposium drew an audience of over 340 physicians and nurses from all over North Vietnam. Plans are for similar programs, staffed by the Mayo specialists, every six months. Physicians throughout Vietnam will be invited.
Program Doctor Has Busy Schedule
 Dr. Solomon making point to Dr. Nguyen
Josh Solomon, M.D., a Pulmonary/Critical Care Specialists on the faculty of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, has been a tremendous addition to the teaching program of the Bach Mai Hospital Project. Josh spends one week every two months at the Bach Mai ICU, teaching the young Vietnamese physicians. He spends most of the rest of the year at an orphanage for disabled children in Hoi An, Vietnam. There, he cares for the medical problems of the children and the general running of the program, including its fund raising. He is in the process of building a free Medical Clinic on the site. Josh is an amazing individual. More information about his orphanage project can be obtained by contacting Josh in Vietnam at joshuajsolomon@hotmail.com
Toxicologist Find New Role in Vietnam
Dr. Phillips at work in Bach Mai Poison Control Center
Scott Phillips, M.D., a toxicologist and gifted teacher on the faculty of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, has been involved with the Bach Mai Hospital Project for the past eight years. Toxicology is a major department at the Bach Mai Hospital, and was in need of direction for the development of its Poison Control Center. Scott stepped in with development programs, textbooks (including his own), teaching materials, lectures and ongoing support via the internet. Through the years, he has maintained an intense ongoing relationship with that department and its staff. Here in Colorado, he oversees the training of the young Vietnamese toxicologists that come here for advanced training. Scott provides his boundless energies to meet other needs of the Project as well, always willing and able to help out.
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