In August 2022, HVO volunteer Dr. Mark Koh Jean Aan, clinical associate professor and head and senior consultant at the Department of Dermatology of KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Singapore, headed to Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy (HUMP) in Vietnam to conduct a workshop on pediatric dermatology in partnership with Dr. Phuong Nguyen, then HVO’s on-site coordinator for the project. Dr. Koh brought a team of five colleagues from Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines to collaborate with Dr. Nguyen and other dermatology staff in Hue to plan the first workshop on neonatal dermatology to take place in Vietnam.
Twelve hundred health care professionals from institutions all over the country in several fields including pediatrics, obstetrics, and family medicine attended the presentations, both in-person and virtually. The workshop covered thirteen lecture topics, from physiological skin changes in neonates to genodermatoses presenting in the neonatal period. “There have been no real pediatric dermatologists in Vietnam,” wrote Dr. Nguyen at the time, “so this workshop is so meaningful to us.”
Two years later, HUMP and Vietnam are still seeing the ripple effects from the conference. Mai Ba Hoang Anh, MD, PhD, current on-site coordinator for the HVO project, believes that the conference attracted attention to pediatric dermatology from all over the country. Another conference was held in May 2023, this time in Ho Chi Minh City, and included multiple presentations on pediatric skin diseases. The chairman, and one of the speakers, was Dr. Leong Kin Fon, a member of Dr. Mark Koh’s volunteer team. The team returned in September 2023 for another conference on pediatric skin diseases, also in Ho Chi Minh City.
“The recognition and examination of pediatric dermatological diseases have also changed significantly,” says Dr. Anh. “Doctors outside the dermatological field such as pediatricians and obstetricians have also paid more attention to dermatological diseases in infants and young children. For unusual skin problems in children, they usually call for consultation when necessary and ask for additional opinions from dermatologists.” Dr. Anh feels that many dermatologists have now become more interested in the subspecialty of pediatric dermatology because of the recent conferences. But, because pediatric dermatology has not received as much attention in the past, dermatologists have not received proper, systematic training. Dr. Anh shared his hope for the future: “Volunteers from HVO have helped us pay more attention to pediatric dermatology and update new knowledge for better practice. We hope that in the future there will be more courses on pediatric dermatology to serve the needs not only of dermatologists but also of other specialists interested in learning at Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy.”
If you are interested in learning more about Health Volunteers Overseas or about volunteering, visit www.hvousa.org or contact Natalie Cary at ncary@hvousa.org.