Hospital Staff and IEP Team Mission Review


After the last surgery, the hospital staff and IEP team gathered at a ceremony to review the accomplishments during our stay and recognize the efforts of both the hospital staff and IEP team members. Several people spoke to share their perspective on IEP's work at the hospital.

From left to right: Can Tho General Hospital's Dr. Tam with
IEP's Drs. Bruche Lehnert, Meir Nyska, and Jeffrey Spanko.

Dr. Em, Orthopedic Department Director, Can Tho General Hospital
Thank you for sharing your spirit and skill with us. My colleagues and I appreciate your support and cooperation. I hope that our cooperation will continue and become stronger. My one wish to everyone is that may all of you have in the new year have good health, good fortune, and peace. 
Dr. Bruce Lehnert, Medical Director, International Extremity Project
It has been 12 years since I first started coming to Can Tho General Hospital. We have formed strong relationships with many of the dcotors and with Dr. Em over several years. 
I want to thank everyone here at Can Tho General Hospital for screening patients who need our help, providing the facilities, and to all of the doctors and nurses who helped with the surgeries. Thank you to the IEP team and hospital team for a great job and cooperating to provide surgeries for 40 patients -- the most we've ever done. 
We are continuing our tradition of donating equipment to the hospital, including a power set, bone graft material, and surgical instruments. 
We want to follow up with patients with three month reports, six months, and a year to identify and solve any problems and learn our successes. 
Dr. Tam, Director, Can Tho General Hospital
Thank you to everyone here, especial from the hospital and the International Extremity Project. We are very glad to welcome everyone to our country, especially during the new year celebration. On behalf of all the patients, thanks to IEP -- not only the team here, but those who help sponsor the team to come here.  
Our hospital belongs to the Ministry of Health, so all activity at the hospital belongs to the Ministry of Health of Vietnam. All operations and procedures belong to the Ministry of Health and we need permission from the ministry, but everything with IEP always moves very smoothly. 
The reason we could not do surgery on children under five is because of rules from the Ministry of Health. This hospital is designated for adults and those children would have to be treated at the pediatric hospital. We know this was disappointing and wanted to explain. 
Our hospital was recently visited by the Minister of Health. When you come back in two years, we will have established a pediatric department so we can help many more children. We recently also applied for medical therapy for those who have foot deformities after injuries. We want to combine medical theory with surgery to correct deformities. 
We started our brothership in 2000. Until 2007 we worked in the old hosptial. We moved in 2008. I hope you can see how the new hospital has developed over five years with the construction. 
We are trying to develop personnel to study abroad to improve about 24 different departments. We hope the hospital will improve with the cooperation in our international projects. If you know of opportunities so we can have deeper cooperation in the future.  
We would like the hospital and our group to have closer relationships and cooperation, not just every two years. We would like to use e-mail to have discussions and deeper and closer communication as frequently as possible. 
The administration in general is very happy. We hope in the future we can continue our relationship and you can come back more often. 
Lastly, thanks again to all members of IEP here and in the states, and those who sponsor to make this possible on behalf of the hospital, patients, and family. 
I wish you a good time in Can Tho and safe travel back to America. We would like to see all of IEP here again as soon as possible.

Comments