With great joy, our team of neonatologists and pediatric surgeons returned to the Women and Children’s Hospital in Da Nang, Vietnam, for an educational mission trip. Our surgical focus for this occasion was chest wall and lung malformations. We assisted with thoracic cases, shared academic lectures, and brought surgical equipment to support the repair of pectus excavatum malformations in the future. These provisions will enable the surgical team to start a pectus excavatum repair program locally instead of outsourcing to other parts of the country. The neonatology team assisted with complex patient care provided seminars on NICU protocols, and developed plans for continued international team building.
Our neonatology team participated in patient discussions on difficult clinical cases that included complex congenital defects, genetic disorders, and the management of extremely premature infants. In addition, we provided educational didactics on hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, therapeutic hypothermia, management of anemia of prematurity, fluid and nutritional management, and a physiology-targeted approach to the management of hypotension and shock. The Da Nang neonatology group shared the care implementation they learned during of their educational exchange program with Loma Linda University in April 2024. With our collaboration, we strive to provide improvements in outcomes the infants in their care.
