Hai Phong (VNA) - A medical specialist training programme hasopened in Hai Phong city for 19 medical graduates who have volunteered to workin various remote localities in the country.

The programme will train the young volunteers for two years in sevenspecialties: internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, pediatrics, anesthesia,diagnostic medical imaging and infectious diseases at the Hai Phong Universityof Medicine and Pharmacy.

The graduates were chosen by the Ministry of Health (MoH) based on outstandingacademic performances.

The training programme is part of a pilot project, started by the ministry in2013, that sends medical graduates to disadvantaged areas, includingmountainous regions, border areas and islands.

It was prompted by a shortage of about 600 medical specialists in 62 poordistricts of the country, according to Dr Pham Van Tac, project director aswell as director of the ministry’s Department of Organisation and Personnel.

“Some hospitals in the mountainous districts of the Lai Chau, Son La, Cao Bangand Ha Giang provinces only have four to five doctors; and some don’t haveany,” he told the Hanoi Moi (New Hanoi) newspaper.

“Meanwhile there are about 140 doctors in just a single district in Nam Dinh province.It’s a huge discrepancy,” he said.
 
After getting project approval in February 2013, over the last three years, theministry has collaborated with the Hanoi Medical University to organise fivetraining programmes for 78 medical graduates who volunteered to work in 37 poordistricts across 13 provinces.

The 78 chosen were medical students who’d graduated with distinction andvolunteered to join the project, said Associate Professor Nguyen Duc Hinh,principal of Hanoi Medical University.

[Young doctor volunteers to work in poor area]

These students will work at central hospitals for a short period of time beforejoining a two-year specialist training programme, after which they will beconsidered “doctors”, and sent to work at district-level hospitals in poorprovinces for four years (men) and two years (women), he added.

“After that they get to choose whether to go back to the central hospitalswhere they previously worked, or transfer to local hospitals in theirhometowns,” he said.

In July, the first seven medical volunteers who completed their training weresent to Lao Cai province’s Bac Ha and Muong Khuong districts, Son La province’sSop Cop district, Bac Kan province’s Pac Nam and Ba Be districts, and Dien Bienprovince’s Muong Nhe district.

Soon after he was sent to the Bac Ha General Hospital, surgeon Nguyen Chien Quyet,28, performed an endoscopic surgery on a Mong man suffering fromappendicitis.

“I hadn’t had much experience at that time and hadn’t even got used to workingwith my colleagues. But luckily the operation turned out fine,” Quyet said.

“From then on, I was determined to apply to the fullest what I had learned inschool to take care of the local people here,” he added.

The young doctors have anticipated the struggles and difficulties that comewith working in remote areas among ethnic minority people whose languages they werenot familiar with, said Tran Thi Loan, a female doctor from that first batch ofseven, who was sent to the Muong Khuong General Hospital in Lao Cai province. 

“I got used to them after a while,” she said. “Now I’m confident that I’ll‘nail’ my two years of duty here.”

Despite the well-meant intention to alleviate doctor shortages, directors ofmany local health departments have raised concern over the project’seffectiveness in the long run, said project director Dr Pham Van Tac.

“Some say that two to three years are too short for the medical volunteers toactually improve their skills and help increase healthcare quality atdistrict-level hospitals. Not to mention the ‘gaps’ left by these doctors whenthey fulfill their duty and leave,” he said.   

The MoH will reconsider the duration of deputation, starting with the nextbatch of medical volunteers, Tac said. It will also work to retain them in thepoor districts, he added.

The ministry will also consider providing specialist training for local doctorsin the poor areas so that they can fill up the spots left by the volunteers, hesaid.

The project expects to send 300-500 doctors to 62 disadvantaged districts by2020.-VNA