When the American Orthopedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS) outreach to Vietnam began in 2002, the volunteers hoped to better the lives of countless people. Thirteen years later, AOFAS volunteers have surgically treated over 1, 100 patients and have seen more than 2, 600 patients in the clinics, at no cost to the patients. In 2014 alone, the volunteers evaluated more than 212 patients and performed surgery on 79 of them.
Each year, AOFAS organizes the Overseas Outreach Project to Vietnam. AOFAS volunteers pay their own travel expenses and the Orthopedic Foot & Ankle Outreach & Education Fund, assisted by charitable donations, picks up the in-country expenses. In 2014, six members of AOFAS made the journey to Vietnam with the outreach program. One of these volunteers was Aaron Guyer, M.D.
“The patients and families were grateful for our care, and the surgeons were eager to work with us, ” said Guyer, an orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon from Tallahassee, Florida, who has volunteered with the outreach project twice before. “More importantly, I’ve learned something new each time I’ve volunteered in Vietnam, and this year was no different.”
The annual Vietnam outreach project aims to treat patients with a variety of ills, most often congenital deformities not usually seen in the United States. In 2014, the volunteers spent 4 weeks, from May 26 to June 20, working with Vietnamese orthopedic surgeons. Guyer and a fellow volunteer, Angus McBryde, M.D. of Columbia, South Carolina, spent time at Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi. They also worked in Yen Bai, a city in the northeast of the country. Guyer and the other volunteer surgeons faced difficulties because many hospitals and clinics in Vietnam do not have the same technology as those in the United States.
“I’m always amazed at what can be accomplished with the limited resources physicians have available in Vietnam. It makes me appreciate just how fortunate we are in the United States with our medical system, ” Guyer said.
In addition to seeing patients and performing surgery, the AOFAS volunteers had the opportunity to present at the annual AOFAS-sponsored orthopedic educational conference in Hanoi, held on June 7. In addition to Guyer and MacBryde, the volunteers’ ranks consisted of Naren Gurbani, M.D. of Downey, California; Minoo Hollis, M.D. of Navarre, Florida; L. Daniel Latt, M.D., Ph.D. of Tucson, Arizona; and Naomi Shields, M.D. of Wichita, Kansas.
To support the annual Overseas Outreach Project to Vietnam, donations can be made to the Orthopedic Foot & Ankle Outreach & Education Fund (OEF), a separate 501(c) (3) organization affiliated with the AOFAS that funds the outreach project. A link for donating to OEF can be found on the AOFAS homepage, http://www.aofas.org/Pages/Home.aspx.
