Medical Mission, Day 1: Welcome Meeting

We arrived Wednesday night and dove right into work on Thursday morning at Can Tho Central General Hospital. Before seeing patients, we had our traditional welcome meeting with the Director and Vice Director of the hospital and the head of orthopedics.

The director shared some interesting statistics with us.
  • Nearly 1 in 1000 people in Vietnam has an extremity deformity
  • Extreme lower deformities are the most common.
  • The hospital gathers patients from about 75 different locations to fix deformities. 
These are some of the reasons our team comes to Can Tho.

The director expressed his appreciation for our team coming from multiple countries to work in Can Tho. He wished us all health and luck and hopes we can continue our missions here for many years.



It's IEP's eighth mission at this hospital, after several missions at the old hospital. Dr. Bruce Lehnert, one of our group founders, also spoke at the meeting, explaining how much we appreciate the cooperation of the hospital in arranging patients for screening and the operating rooms we'll use. We rely on the hospital team for nursing, operating room support, and care on the patient floors.

Dr. Lehnert also introduced our team and the roles each person plays to help our teams better communicate and work together in the coming days. Our team includes doctors, nurses, surgical technicians, interpreters, an essential oils specialist, and me -- the shuffler of papers, collector of patient information, and storyteller. 😀

IEP team celebrating the new year with the medical staff from the hospital. 

Comments