Collaboration between ScanBalt BioRegion and Vietnamese Medical Universities: Training Initiated
Vietnamese medical school managements from National Technical School of Medicine II (Da Dang) and Hue University of Pharmacy and Medicine (Hue) and professors from European universities held a joint seminar at Tartu on 25.02 – 27.02.2013.
The Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tartu welcomed 33 delegates and opened its doors to different departments of Biomedicum, Estonian Genome Center and Tartu University Hospital. During the seminar, possibilities for research and training activities at the University of Tartu were described. The idea of the seminar was to provide an overview of the current state and of key topics of the Scandinavian Care Foundation project “Improvement on Health Care Resource in Da Nang” financed by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.
Attendees listened presentations and participated in panel discussions involving a number of leading experts of the medical specialities. Subjects included the future of the project activities, an update on continuing traineeship management (training activities at the Sweden / SB Health Region partner universities have begun) and critical discussion about possible new funding sources. Together with the representatives of Jönköping University (Sweden), Gdansk Medical University (Poland) and Oslo University (Norway) the possibilities of joint cooperation in preclinical and clinical fields was discussed.
After the seminar, 39 trainees are coming from partner universities of Vietnam for up to 4 months training period. For academic training first candidates have been selected. Main fields from clinical specialities covered by the project partner from Estonia are anesthesiology, obstetrics and gynaecology, trauma-orthopaedics, radiology, stomatology and pediatrics. 9 vietnamese interests are in preclinical specialities as pharmacology, physiology and public health. 4 candidates from the fields of pharmaceutics, biochemistry and internal medicine, have been accepted to Poland, the fields of pshychiatry and medical biology will be conducted by partners from Norway and Sweden.
Scientific collaboration has already started in the field of traumatology and orthopaedics, professors are in the middle of preparations in order to collect samples for major orthopedic diseases (osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, osteogenesis imperfecta) together with Vietnam partners. Participants agreed to organize more detailed technical workshop in Vietnam at the end of March. This would be as a start-point for longer scientific collaboration combining genomics, metabolomics and bone diseases.
The next visit of ScanBalt professionals to Vietnam is taking place from March 25-29. The ScanBalt delegation of 19 people will attend 50th anniversary conference of the Da Nang National Medical College and will have project working meetings with Vietnamese peers in Da Nang and Hue.
Scandinavian Care Foundation implements the project “Improvement on Health Care Resource in Da Nang” which lasts for 18 months, from February 2012 until September 2013. The project coordinates several ScanBalt Health Region universities – Tartu University, Jönköping University, Gdansk Medical University and Oslo University – hosting lecturers and professors from Hue Medical University and Da Nang National Medical College for 2-4 month training sessions to advance medical education capacity in Vietnam. The total budgeted cost for the project is planned of 15,368 million SEK of which The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency has approved a grant of 5,533 million SEK.
The aim of the project is to enhance the health care system’s capacity and quality, improving access to health care services and to higher education in Vietnam. The project includes activities in relevant human resource development areas like teachers training, continuous professional exchange, postgraduate training, exploring possibilities for video lecturing and telemedicine as well as second opinion services. The project is also to improve clinical and postgraduate training of medical doctors in Vietnam. For clinical training several specialties have selected according to the needs of partners in Vietnam. Postgraduate training is more focused on the PhD training and forms a pillar for scientific collaboration. Thus, project has outcome for clinical practitioners and for university academic personnel.
