Global Education: Teaching EMS in Vietnam

As the EMS profession continues to develop around the world, conferences and seminars on the latest information and best practices continue to expand.

Craig Cooley, MD, EMS fellowship program director at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio and associate EMS medical director at the San Antonio Fire Department, recently got a chance to help run such a conference in Vietnam.

Along with his associate David Wampler, an assistant professor at the UT Health Science Center, and the Vietnamese Society of Emergency Medicine, Cooley helped direct the two-day EMS portion of the VSEM Conference on Emergency Medicine in Hanoi City, Vietnam.

The conference was held at the end of March at the Bach Mai Hospital and the Melia Hotel, and featured speakers from Vietnam, the U.S. and other countries.

Cooley says although the conference has had a bit of EMS-specific information in the past, this is the first year he has been able to host a full-on EMS portion.

 The original plan was to have one day to focus on the Vietnamese system’s version of medical directors, and the second day focus more on their version of EMS providers. Cooley says the model morphed more into a two-day conference on an array of topics covering a wide scope of their system.

Wampler says the first day ended up being more about providing information and education, and the second day became more of a hands-on workshop.

“We went through various scenarios and skills, for example a multi-system mock disaster drill, pit crew CPR model training, IO access and some burn treatment,” Wampler says.

Cooley says this fit his original intentions well because he intended the conference to be a more practical.

Although there are differences between the U.S. EMS system and the Vietnamese EMS system, Cooley says he didn’t need to change the material for the most part. The intention was mostly to lay a foundation for the basics that are universal across all systems, and he believes they accomplished that goal.

However, the pair says there are some significant differences between the Vietnamese system and the U.S. system.

“It’s probably 30 to 40 years behind us in the sense of advancement in some ways, and in some ways it’s better,” Cooley says. “They don’t use backboards, so they’re ahead of us on that one.”

The way the population accesses EMS is different as well. Cooley says the general population doesn’t generally call for an ambulance unless there really isn’t another way to get to the hospital, with some people with serious injuries even taking cabs to the hospital.

In the Vietnamese system, usually a physician and nurse staff the ambulance while a third, usually medically untrained person drives the ambulance.

“There seems to be a little fixation on the idea of having true paramedics over there, when in reality, they have medical providers that theoretically are higher trained than a paramedic,” Cooley says.

Where the system gets confusing is when individual hospitals come into play, Cooley says. Many hospitals have their own ambulance departments with their own number to dial, usually a variant of 1-1-5, and people can call those ambulances directly to get transport to the hospital of their choosing.

Wampler says whereas 9-1-1 here is sort of a catchall, they have different numbers for fire or police.

“It gets a little convoluted particularly when you’re talking about Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon, the system gets to be more of a free for all,” Cooley says.

Cooley says in the future, he hopes to continue providing the EMS-specific portion of the conference. He is hopeful this will be an option, because the two-day portion this year was well-received by attendees.

There are a couple obstacles, such as scheduling and funding that may be expected with a conference in another country, but Cooley and Wampler are optimistic these issues can be worked around.

“The intent is we hopefully will expand on this as the years go and their system matures,” Cooley says.