Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Background

Since the 1950s, the Ministry of Health (MOH) in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has developed a network of 10,000 Commune Health Center (CHC) facilities across the country. CHC health care teams consist of generalist physicians, assistant physicians, midwives, and nurses. By 2004, 50% of Vietnam’s CHCs had generalist physician coverage.

In 1995, the MOH partnered with international experts to evaluate Vietnam’s primary health care delivery and education systems. Faculty members from the Collaborative embarked upon a four-year needs assessment. Vietnamese doctors are graduates of six-year medical schools. They rarely receive any post-medical school graduate training and often enter practice with no training in ambulatory medicine. Throughout their careers, these doctors have no access to organized continuing medical education. These findings and the resulting recommendations convinced the MOH to choose a new system of health care delivery with an emphasis on Family Medicine.

In March 2000, the Minister of Health, declared the creation of a Family Medicine specialty in Vietnam. In 2001, the Collaborative began its first official project, the Vietnam Family Medicine Project, which focused on the development of a curriculum framework and the establishment of a national coordinating body to supervise the ongoing work, and training of family doctors. The project started in Hanoi and expanded to Ho Chi Minh City, resulting in partnerships between the Ministry of Health, the Hanoi Medical College, Ho Chi Minh City School of Medicine and Pharmacology, Thai Nguyen Medical School and the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA). Since 2001, six Vietnamese medical schools have established Family Medicine as a discipline, including Hue Medical College and Can Tho Medical University. The Collaborative continues to expand its efforts in Vietnam, embarking on hospital nutrition and faculty development projects.

Goal

The overall goal of our projects in Vietnam is to assist in the development, implementation and evaluation of curriculum, faculty and training sites for a national Family Medicine program. Our collaborative projects aim to create sustainable training programs that will develop the Family Medicine Model as the cornerstone for the delivery of primary health care to the people of Vietnam.