Vietnam-bound medical team could use doctors, dentist
A medical team preparing to provide health care to an orphanage and villages in Vietnam in May could use some help, especially if you happen to be a pediatrician or dentist.
The team also is seeking donations of medicines and medical supplies, including an infant incubator.
The mission is headed by Lorna Schumann, a nurse practitioner and associate professor at Washington State University’s Intercollegiate College of Nursing. Schumann is a veteran of numerous medical missions, including six trips to Honduras, three trips to Ecuador, as well as Ukraine, Crimea, Pakistan and India.
“We go from village to village setting up camp at a local school or church,” Schumann said.
“People in some of these countries have zero medical care.”
Health care providers at the Vietnam clinics will diagnose and treat illnesses and dispense medications.
This will be Schumann’s first trip to Vietnam. She and Lori Ward, a registered nurse and nurse practitioner student of Schumann’s, organized the trip after speaking with Micah Smith, pastor of the Assembly of God Church in Richland, Wash.
Several years ago, Smith’s church built the Center of Hope orphanage at Loc Binh in North Vietnam that the medical team will visit in May, along with 16 members of the church, who will be doing construction work at the facility.
The team has signed up eight health care providers so far.
Besides Schumann and Ward, local team members include Dr. Mike Mainer, an emergency room physician at Spokane Valley Hospital and Medical Center; Mainer’s wife, Stacey, a nurse practitioner student; and Lori Fagen, an intensive care nurse at Valley Hospital.
“We would like to have a couple more doctors,” Schumann said, including a pediatrician, an obstetrician and a dentist.
The team will conduct clinics at the orphanage and a nearby boarding school for adolescents.
Team leaders also expect to treat as many as 300 people a day from the villages of Loc Binh and Na Doung between May 27 and June 3.
Though this may sound like an overwhelming schedule, many of the patients will have the same complaints, Schumann said, parasites and vitamin deficiencies.
Each member of the medical team will pay $900 round trip to Hanoi.
Once in country, living expenses are minimal, Schumann said, adding that team members will travel by public bus.
Pharmaceuticals will be provided by Heart to Heart International and Americare at a minimal cost, a cost Schumann said she typically pays for herself.