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| ASSEMBLY EDITION • ORLANDO, FLA |
If you're thinking of becoming an international family medicine consultant, you should know there are some specific skill sets involved - and not just the ones you'd expect.
Sure, you need excellent communication skills, impeccable diplomatic talents and an inspiring teaching style. But there also are some particular personal qualities you'll need, said Brian Jack, M.D., associate professor and vice chair for academic affairs for the department of family medicine at Boston University.
"If you don't like the heat, don't go to Saudi Arabia," Jack advised during a Friday workshop highlighting the AAFP's International Family Practice Development Assistance Program. And if you're put off by "mean" bathrooms, he said, international consulting may not be your calling. "We should make that our final exam," Jack quipped.
 Professor Pham Dung of
Hanoi Medical University tells U.S. and foreign physicians about family
medicine in his native Vietnam. |
 At left,
Hassan Hadi Baker, M.D., head of Iraq's Family Physician Society, talks with FP
Kelly Murray, M.D., about international activities resources offered by the
Academy. |
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Those challenges couldn't dissuade the family physicians, generalists and others who gathered to hear success stories from Jack and others involved in IFPDAP and similar programs.
Professor Pham Dung, vice director of the Health Strategy and Policy Institute at Hanoi Medical University, presented an overview of how an international consultation project helped catapult family medicine to the forefront of primary care in his native country of Vietnam. Although the project Dung described predated IFPDAP, beginning in 1995, it served as a model for the AAFP program.
Traditionally, Vietnamese medicine - like that in many foreign countries - has centered on care provided by subspecialists, Dung explained. Patients would visit one of the country's large hospitals for all types of care; there was no history of community-based primary care.
That's all changed now, Dung said, and in just eight years. A series of "commune health stations" now stretches across Vietnam, with each station staffed by physicians specifically trained in family medicine and providing full-spectrum care modeled on that offered by FPs in the United States.
And, Dung noted, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health has recognized family medicine as a new form of medical training - Level 1 Specialization in Family Medicine. Most recently, he said, the ministry has called on all Vietnamese universities providing medical education and training to include family medicine curriculum.
Of course, sustainability is key to this development process. A Physicians With Heart airlift to Vietnam in 2001 proved invaluable in maintaining a high level of interest - and visibility - for family medicine, said Daniel Ostergaard, M.D., AAFP vice president for international and interprofessional activities. The visit, which included delivery of donated medical supplies, drugs and educational support, helped lend "credibility and prestige" to Vietnam's family medicine training program, he said.
"It was a heavy-duty assist," Ostergaard said. "We had the U.S. ambassador with us for three days - that's big."
FP Report is
published by the AAFP News Department.
Copyright © 2003 by American Academy of Family Physicians.