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Published: January 11th 2011
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As it would be - lots have happened since my last entry. Let's see - margot and i have been at the hospital for over a week now. She has presented 2 presentations, I present my 2nd tomorrow. We have been getting along really well with the other therapists in their main PT gym (with neuro and ortho patients). Saturday we spent the day sight seeing - luckily after 2 days of solid-flooding rain (which does not stop the cars, motorbikes or bicyclists) we had no rain on our sight seeing day which included a guided tour of Marble Mountain, Monkey mountain (with lunch at the top and some trekking) and the pagoda with the huge 72 meter tall lady buddha. Saturday night we stayed at Hoa's place, a well known off the beaten track guest house backpacker's/surfers/expat hangout on "china beach" which does/doesn't still exist or be defined - no one is certain where along the stretch of beach it exactly was. This gave us a great opportunity to hang out, meet other westerners: travellers, expats, etc and get inside info on vietnam travel as well as get a hot shower (it'd been cold showers for us all week -
and not warm outside to make it tolerable). So, we had a huge family meal (which also gave me the opportunity to feel decent fullness (i've been hungry a lot while here, not right after meals, but probably a half hour later)). We also visited marble mountain the next day and climbed to the top for some views, went wading in the water, hung out and shared a big fat western bbq with others.
As for impressions? The Vietnamese people have been incredibly warm, kind and affectionate - we have become quite well acquainted with the clinicians, patients and especially their families (who are VERY involved with their care). Our teaching assignment has its challenges as would be expected: we don't have an assigned interpretter/translator as expected (except when we are presenting our powerpoints), so the language barrier has been a huge challenge; we've been using lots of miming, pointing out words in a dictionary and on a PT terminology cheat sheet and picking up as many Vietnamese words as we can (which is not a lot). luckily a couple patients and a couple PT's know very little english (one patient knows it rather well). And then there is of
Getting our Yoga on
Margot and I yogaing it up at the pagoda on marble mountain course the cultural challenges and hospital system challenges which margot and I are learning a lot about and getting creative and flexible in our goal-setting and strategies.
We did get to observe a total knee replacement today: 2 surgeons from wisconsin flew in this week to do them with the ortho surgeon. We are hoping to have some influence in helping develop their post-op rehab bcz acute PT does not exist in this hospital and there is longer delay in getting people out of bed after surgery than at home (which I don't expect we will change). It is a fun challenge in trying to problem solve what things we can successfully address (which is all relative) and what are things are better left alone because of various barriers/differences.
Also! Today, I got to evaluate and treat a dancer! She received a knee surgery 4 months ago, but has not been able to return to full dancing. Who knew, I'd be able to practice dance medicine in Vietnam?! Sports medicine also needs attention here as we have not seen a lot of program progression. I met a professional footballer who needed "to be challenged" as the ortho surg put it
Lady Buddha, Da Nang
Can you believe she's 72 meters tall? - so, i was very excited to teach him some of the higher level strengthening, plyometric and balancing exercises we do at home - some of it has been catching on as the PT's are able to get involved with single leg balance ball tosses!
k - gotta go to bed. nighty-night!
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