Humanitarian Missions

Columbia Surgeons Treat Vietnamese Children

Dr. Crair and Dr. Stolar with Vietnamese colleagues

This spring, for the second year in a row, Charles J. H. Stolar, MD, Chief of Pediatric Surgery at Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital of New York, traveled to Hanoi to perform surgery on needy Vietnamese children. Traveling with him were his colleague, Terry Crair, MD, his wife, Carol, a nurse practitioner, and their son, Jacob, a high school student.

The trip was sponsored by Project Vietnam, an organization led by two Vietnamese-American physicians and affiliated with the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Vietnamese operating room staff do a lot with a little.

Families stay in the hospital with their children around the clock, providing nursing care and therapy that would be unavailable otherwise. Family members also cook and do laundry for patients.

These Siamese twins have a good prognosis for successful separation, according to Dr. Crair.

One highlight of this year's trip was a multidisciplinary conference on obstetrics and pediatrics, the first ever to be held in Vietnam, coordinated by Dr. Stolar and Dr. Liem Nguyen of the National Institute for Pediatrics.

For more information about the conference, please click:
http://www.projectvietnam.net/
PerinatalSeminar2002.html

"I'd never been to Asia so for me this was a completely new experience," Dr. Crair said. "I came away with an appreciation of how much their medical system is able to accomplish and how dedicated the hospital staff are. And you realize how fortunate we are to have trained in this country and to have the freedom to practice the way we do." Dr. Crair had trouble finding gloves small enough to fit a woman's hands, because, while there are women doctors in Vietnam, there are no women surgeons there.

Drs. Stolar and Crair took textbooks and medical instruments to donate to the Institute. In addition, Carol and Jacob created a Child Life center at the Institute, using toys and art work donated by friends and Jacob's classmates at the Fieldston School.

The surgeons were involved with a variety of surgical procedures, including minimal access surgery and Hirschsprung's disease, and children with seizures associated with a Vitamin K deficiency at birth.