President's Forum on International Health sheds light on global health issues

Hospitals in Vietnam are overcrowded. Pediatric patients sometimes sleep two to a bed and most beds are not equipped with side rails.

New mothers often give birth on thin, bare mattresses. Doctors use outdated medical equipment and have limited access to ventilators and cardiac monitors.

Myrna Armstrong, Ed.D., R.N., professor and regional dean for School of Nursing at Highland Lakes, and Surendra Varma, M.D., associate dean for Graduate Medical Education for the School of Medicine and UMC J. Ted Hartman, M.D., Endowed Chair, traveled to Vietnam last year to develop initiatives to help improve health care in Southeast Asia.

Some of the initiatives include a continued faculty exchange of expertise in nursing and medicine, the establishment of an elective class for senior nursing and medicine students that emphasizes an international cultural exchange and a program that would enable TTUHSC to send surplus textbooks and technology supplies overseas.

Armstrong and Varma shared their experiences in Vietnam during the Forum on International Health, a weekly series started by TTUHSC President John C. Baldwin, M.D. Each Friday at noon, the Office of Diversity and Multicultural Affairs brings guest speakers to TTUHSC to share their experience and work involving international health.

Past presenters have addressed topics including an international perspective on alcohol and drug use, the status of health care in other countries such as Vietnam and Kenya, and tales from the United States/Mexico border.

May speakers and their topics are as follows:

• May 16 -- John Haynes Jr., M.D., “Toxicology”
• May 23 – Kenn A. Freedman, M.D., Ph.D., “Southern Chihuahua”
• May 30 – Gordon Gong, M.D., “Traditional Chinese Medicine”

Presentations are held in the following TTUHSC locations:

• Lubbock: noon, ACB Room120.
• Odessa: noon, Room 2C12.
• Amarillo: noon, Room 4717.
• El Paso: 11 a.m., Room 212

Story produced by the Office of Communications and Marketing, (806) 743-2143

Myrna Armstrong, Ed.D., R.N., and Surendra Varma, M.D., (not pictured) traveled to Vietnam where they observed drastic differences in the country’s health care system.

Armstrong and Varma hope to develop initiatives such as an international cultural exchange program between TTUHSC students and medical universities in Vietnam to help improve health care in Southeast Asia.