Maymester Trip to Vietnam
Writer: Jason Milton
Contact: Sheila Roberson, 706-542-5303, roberson@rx.uga.edu
Date: November 9, 2006
As I stepped off of the plane in Hanoi, Vietnam, I expected to see a war ravaged jungle-like country much like what has been depicted in American movies. Needless to say, I was very surprised when I left the airport and walked by a young boy that was listening to his MP3 player. The remainder of my interactions in Vietnam delightfully echoed this experience.
I was lucky enough to observe many different areas of healthcare and pharmacy practice during my 3½- week stay in Vietnam. Visits to numerous sites allowed me to develop an appreciation for many of the healthcare conveniences that I have taken for granted my entire life. During these visits, I also developed a new sense of tolerance and appreciation for other ways cultures and societies may do things. Despite the many differences in Vietnamese and American healthcare and government, many of the goals remain the same.
The Vietnamese healthcare system is a coordinated network of socialized care consisting of government managed hospitals and health communes. These institutions are entirely run by agents of the Vietnamese government. I believe this to be a positive as well as a negative aspect of the Vietnamese healthcare system. While patients do not have to worry about their healthcare providers being monetarily motivated to see as many patients as possible, they must be concerned about available resources and sanitation. These institutions do not generate their own funds and must operate on limited government funding that is evenly dispersed among hospitals and health communes all over the country.
The alternative to using a government institution is using a pay-for-service private institution. These facilities are mostly used by the more affluent members of society. This is because the concept of insurance has only been recently introduced into the private healthcare sector.
Pharmacy practice in Vietnam differs significantly from US practice. I was surprised to learn that pharmaceutical agents are not covered, under socialized medicine legislation, after a patient leaves an institution. This as well as the absence of an actively enforced drug policy has led to problems such as antibiotic resistance. More than 50% of Vietnamese patients, receiving an antibiotic, receive therapy for 2.5 days or less. Other differences noted were the lack of proper drug storage, complete absence of technology and of prescription records. In fact, approximately 90% of legend drugs are dispensed without a prescription. The use of herbal agents is much greater, in Vietnamese pharmacies, than what we might see in an American pharmacy. These agents are more generally accepted by patients because they can often manufacture it themselves.
It's very easy for one to state that something in a foreign healthcare system is illogical. However, my experiences enabled me to analyze our own healthcare system and how other world citizens may view it. After all, we do have an unsynchronized insurance industry and a population of healthcare professionals afraid to claim responsibility for their actions because of fear of unrestricted litigation. I believe it is situations like these in which we, as healthcare professionals, must exercise tolerance and have a sense of relativism. A perfect healthcare system does not exist, but world nations can get as close as possible to perfection by understanding each others processes and by working together.
In closing, I would like to thank the amazing faculty (Jack Fincham, Bob Galen, Jace Weaver, and Marsha Black) that facilitated my experience in Vietnam. They enabled me to experience areas of pharmacy practice and healthcare that will affect my future practice in a most positive way. I would also like to encourage other students to pursue experiences such as this one.
For more information see the student-maintained UGA Vietnam Study Abroad website at http://www.ugavietnam.com.
Click here to view photos from Jason's Maymester trip to Vietnam.