In November 2008, World Health Ambassador successfully completed another international medical and dental mission - this time in the beautiful nation of Lao PDR.  The 33-member team was the largest and most diverse team fielded to date - in regards to professional backgrounds as well as ethnicities and localities.  This truly international mission included a dental team from Vietnam and physician and dental teams from the Lao Ministry of Health.  Member's medical specialties included family medicine, internal medicine, family practice, cardiology, infectious disease, and pulmonary critical care.  Despite the diversity, the team bonded tightly and worked as a cohesive unit.
 
With wonderful assistance from the Lao Embassy in the United States, the WHA team arrived in Lao on schedule and went to work the next morning.  We saw more than 1500 patients and filled approximately 5,000 prescriptions in 3 major parts of the country - Vientiane, Luang Prabang, and Vang Vieng.  Our host country allowed us to provide care in a wide range of clinical settings and thus gave us a broad view of the Lao health care system.  Our first stop was the Mahosot Hospital and School of Medicine, the largest medical teaching facility in the capital city of Vientiane.  Here the WHA program donated valuable life-saving medical equipment, such as ventilators and ICU monitors, as well as an impressive amount of medication to the people of Laos.  The team went on to treat patients at the provincial clinic in Vang Vieng and the government-operated orphanage in Luang Prabang.  The team also traveled by canoes and small open-air trucks to reach villages across the mighty Mekong River, far up the winding mountains of a peaceful Luang Prabang, along colorful monastery-lined countryside where the minority Montagnard people live.  Our venues were as diverse as the patient populations that we served.  Thanks to the generosity of philanthropists from home, we were able to render advanced dental and medical services such as complete restorative dental surgery, monitoring cardiac telemetry and performing chemistry analysis for the people of Laos.

 

This was by far the most physically rigorous and mentally challenging mission to date - as agreed by all new and veteran team members of WHA.  The success of this enormous endeavor resulted from the tremendous hard work, amazing camaraderie, fearless attitudes and genuine hearts of our team members.  We left Laos with beautiful memories, new friendships, and inspiration to continue our passion to treat those less fortunate. 

 

For more stories, poems and pictures from the Laos mission, please visit our website at www.whausa.org.