A Tradition ofTraditional Medicine

Abstract

“Mo, Hi, Ba … Yo! (1, 2, 3 … Go!).” My Vietnamese hosts were very enthusiastic and insistent about toasting with beer at the celebratory dinner for our medical mission to Vietnam. As the evening progressed and the toasting continued, I noted that my beer glass appeared to have no bottom, or at least my Vietnamese hosts were ensuring I never reached it. We had completed a week of training and everyone was pleased with the results during our visit to Central Hospital, ![Graphic][1] , in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. As the mission leader, I was contented with our performance and I matched my cheering Vietnamese colleagues beer for beer. In the morning, the previous evening cheer, the novel diet, and fatigue all conspired to create quite a headache. For the past 5 years, the Defense and Veterans Pain Management Initiative (http://www.DVPMI.org) has been bringing anesthesiology residents and acute pain medicine anesthesiology fellows to train in medically underserved environments. Our Vietnamese hosts are voracious in their desire to learn the latest allopathic medical techniques utilized by Western medicine. Our acute pain medicine team, demonstrating the latest technology and procedures for regional anesthesia and perioperative pain management, has been enthusiastically received throughout the country during our annual visits. Our military residents and fellows gain valuable insight into educational methods and anesthesia practice in less technology-driven environments. This experience is peerless in contemporary American medicine and tremendously valuable for new military anesthesiologists preparing for the medical realities of the modern battlefield. Headache notwithstanding, I still had a full day of teaching and ceremony to mark the end of another successful mission. I must have been looking rougher than usual as my Vietnamese counterpart noted my discomfort and suggested a quick visit with the hospital's “traditional medicine” provider would … [1]: /embed/inline-graphic-1.gif