Dien Bien Phu: Dr. Chris

Photo 1: Dr Chris with the village nurse; Photo 2: Adorable baby getting bathed during WU mtg

Our March trip in Dien Bien Phu was particularly exciting because we were accompanied by Chris, a talented young Harvard Doctor who is working in Saigon for several months. Dr. Chris helped us to perform an overall health assessment of the areas in which we will work. We met with the village Drs and nurses of the villages and interviewed the women during group meetings. Several people asked to be seen by Dr. Chris in private. It was amazing to see how helpful it was to have a Dr. on board and how appreciative everyone was to have a Dr. all the way from the USA. Of course, we introduced him as a Dr from Harvard, but that really didn't seem to be very meaningful to people..

A very gentle woman in her late forties took the Dr aside to show him her scalp which was red and crusty. Dr. Chris examined the woman and told her that she suffered from "psoriasis", which is an autoimmune disorder where the immune system attacks the skin for reasons that they still haven't discovered. A certain type of tar shampoo helps to calm the immune system down. You can not imagine the look of relief on her face when she found out that she did not have lepracy. Here is a woman who would not have had the chance to see a Dr. due to how far she lives from the town center and perhaps also due to the lack of available knowledge about such diseases in the town center. This woman who had probably prepared herself to live a life with lepracy (and somewhat marginalization) was now able to treat her symptoms. Thanks to Dr. Chris, we will be able to bring up some special shampoos for her from Hanoi on our next visit.