Silent contributions in white coat
(Baonghean.vn) - In Nghe An, there are many medical staff who are shining examples of professional ethics. They silently dedicate themselves to the cause of caring for and protecting public health. The white blouse they wear is the embodiment of knowledge, honor, and the noble personality of a physician.
Special environment
“Psychiatric Hung”, “Psychiatric Doctor Hung” – These disrespectful titles once haunted Dr. Nguyen Canh Hung – Deputy Director of Nghe An Psychiatric Hospital every time his name was called. This obsession stems from self-stigma when the psychiatric profession was previously considered less prestigious than other medical specialties, including factors such as: special working environment, special patient groups, and even disadvantages in terms of income, benefits, and living conditions of medical staff.
Doctor Nguyen Canh Hung said: After 3 years working at Anh Son District Medical Center, in 2008, due to family reasons, I applied to work at Nghe An Mental Hospital. I must say that in the early days, I was quite bewildered and disappointed due to the change in working environment. If the environment at the general hospital made medical staff more active, the new environment was somewhat strange, with many factors affecting psychology as well as occupational diseases. Here, there were few conscious patients; many patients with mental disorders. Instead of thanking, patients often resisted, cursed, and threatened to beat the medical staff who helped them. Even after being stable and discharged from the hospital, some patients still "hated" doctors and nurses.
Besides the strangeness, Dr. Hung also realized some very “cute” things: The relationship between colleagues is very open and sharing. Mental patients are all poor, unable to work and even unable to control their behavior – they are very pitiful. The responsibility of a doctor working in the field of psychiatry is extremely glorious. Successfully treating a mentally ill person means treating an entire family, reducing the burden and a risk to the whole society…
Fully aware of the responsibility of the medical profession, empathizing with the pain of patients and their families, Dr. Hung quickly integrated into the new environment; learned knowledge, improved skills to perform well the duties of treatment and mental health care for patients. With a solid grasp of expertise and dedication to patients, Dr. Hung received respect from colleagues, recognition from leaders at all levels and was successively appointed to the positions of head of department, head of department and deputy director of the hospital.
The more we approach specialized issues, the more we realize that psychiatry is a very difficult and challenging field. To treat brain dysfunction, a physician needs solid knowledge, skills, understanding of social issues and passion for the profession. As we know, psychiatry is a general name for many groups of diseases. Psychiatric patients come from many different ages, genders, cultural levels, religions, occupations and ethnicities. Each patient requires a different attitude, approach and treatment. A physician needs to have a certain level of understanding to be able to see the nature of the problem the patient is facing.
When suffering from mental disorders, patients tend to share and communicate very little. Therefore, the physician himself must have empathy, harmony, and love for the patient; must observe and listen carefully to the patient and his family; must be patient to approach and penetrate the patient's world... from there, he can have a direction for diagnosis, therapy, and long-term treatment strategy for the patient.
After 16 years working in the psychiatric field, looking back at his silent work process "without being remembered by patients", Dr. Nguyen Canh Hung has never regretted choosing to "enter the world of mentally abnormal people". He confided: "Nowadays, society is developing more and more, there are more and more diseases, the need for psychiatric treatment is increasing. As a psychiatrist, I am honored to be on duty to save people and serve patients. I will try to improve my knowledge, contribute to the quality of life for patients and their families, and reduce the burden on society".
Tireless steps in the epidemic area
Similar to psychiatrists, medical staff working in disease prevention and control always silently contribute. They “have to throw themselves into dirty places to clean them, have to throw themselves into painful places to reduce pain” - Doctor Pham Dinh Tung - Deputy Director of the Center for Disease Control of Nghe An province is such a person.
Doctor Pham Dinh Tung officially joined the "army" of malaria prevention in Nghe An at the peak of 1992. Doctor Tung said: In 1991 - 1992, Nghe An was the hot spot for malaria in the whole country. The epidemic occurred continuously. All mountainous and midland districts had epidemics. At that time, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Khanh and Minister of Health Pham Song personally went to Nghe An to command the epidemic prevention work. The Government, the Ministry of Health and Nghe An province decided to establish a Mobile Medical Team with the participation of more than 100 medical students and medical staff to fight malaria. I was a member of the team.
The mission of the Mobile Medical Team at that time was to go to each village to propagate, mobilize for prevention, collect samples to detect malaria, spray pesticides, impregnate mosquito nets and provide treatment. Wherever there was an epidemic, the Mobile Medical Team was present. When the epidemic ended in one area, they would move on to another. In those years, villages in Western Nghe An were “devastated” by dengue fever. In some villages, 90% of the people carried malaria parasites; rice was ripe in the fields but there were no healthy people to harvest it.
In 1994, the malaria epidemic in Nghe An passed its peak, the Mobile Medical Team was disbanded. Doctor Pham Dinh Tung and a number of excellent team members were recruited and officially assigned to the provincial Malaria Station (later the Nghe An Province Malaria - Parasite - Insect Prevention Center). Doctor Tung and his colleagues continued to carry backpacks with microscopes and malaria treatment drugs, walking to find villages to fight the epidemic.
Each mission usually lasts 2-3 months. When the epidemic is over in one village, we move on to another. Some areas are extremely difficult, it can take a whole day to climb the slope to the village. Once in the anti-epidemic village, there is no means of communication. There are cases where relatives have passed away for many days before they can return to mourn.
The footsteps of medical staff working on malaria prevention and control (including Dr. Tung) have left their mark on all the villages in the Western region of Nghe An. They have stayed close to the people and villages to prevent the epidemic... With the support of foreign organizations, investment of resources from the Central Government and the participation of the entire political and social system, and the efforts of grassroots medical staff and malaria specialists in Nghe An province, the epidemic has been gradually pushed back and eliminated.
The malaria epidemic in Nghe An has receded, but for Dr. Pham Dinh Tung, the fight against the epidemic has not stopped. On the epidemic prevention front, Dr. Tung has always volunteered and taken the lead. In 2007, in Nghe An, parasitic diseases such as large liver flukes, intestinal flukes, tapeworms, large fluke larvae, dog and cat roundworms, eelworms, etc. began to emerge with a high incidence. Dr. Tung was assigned to develop techniques for testing, diagnosing and treating these diseases. In 2019, when the Covid-19 epidemic broke out, he led a delegation of Nghe An medical staff to support Ha Tinh province in fighting the epidemic. He himself has also made many contributions to the prevention and control of the Covid-19 epidemic in the province, when he took on the role of a leading "expert" in the assigned areas such as Cua Lo town and Nghia Dan, Quy Hop, Quy Chau, and Que Phong districts.
As long as the epidemic lasts, we will continue to “march” to protect people’s health. We only hope that the preventive health system will continue to receive more investment and attention so that the work of preventing and fighting the epidemic can be more effective.
