Thailand

INTERNATIONAL TRIP REPORT – Thailand January 2024

ABOUT THIS MISSION TRIP

I was traveling on behalf of what organization or humanitarian group:

Thai Physician Association of America (TPAA)

Thai Physician Association of America Foundation

All Thai physicians in the US belong to these two organizations. Medical missions are being done through TPAA by medical education and donation of medical equipment. TPAAF is a nonprofit organization and people can donate to their school education fund through TPAAF. TPAAF provides operation funds to TPAA and Red Cross.

The goal of this trip was to provide medical education for nurses and doctors in Thailand by teaching S.T.A.B.L.E. classes including the new cardiac S.T.A.B.L.E. as well as donations of much needed medical equipment to the hospital and enable many TPAA members to share their experience with the medical staff of various departments in the hospital.

Medical equipment donations received by Maharat Nakhon Ratchasima Hospital – 

Transport incubator TR200, Masimo pulse oximeter, Syringe pumps, NST, and Infusion pumps.

TPAA Goals

• Provide medical education for nurses and doctors in Thailand.
• Donation of medical equipment to the hospitals in Thailand.
• Donation for scholarship fund for master’s degree at Harvard school of Public Health for Thai students.
• Donation for education scholarship fund for poor students in Thailand. 
• Disaster relief fund for earthquake, flood victims in US, and anywhere in the world.

People are often interested in knowing more about the region you visited. Please describe the community where S.T.A.B.L.E. was taught. 

Maharat Nakhon Ratchasima Hospital is located in the southeast of Thailand 261 km from Bangkok population 2.7 million. It is the largest regional hospital in Thailand providing medical education for medical students, interns, and residents as well as patient care in all specialties. 5000 births annually, three neonatologists covering the 40 bed NICU with the ability to perform therapeutic hypothermia for HIE. It has a total of 1387 hospital beds. 

How many students attended your course and what were their credentials?  

There were 205 attendees – 51 RNs, 154 physicians.

Describe some of the nursing and medical challenges being faced by the S.T.A.B.L.E. course attendees with regard to provision of day-to-day neonatal care: 

Nurses may have some difficulty in English language, so the class was taught as much as possible in the Thai language. The transport incubator received with this trip was just in time as the one on site had just gone out of commission even after repeated repair. 

How do you envision The S.T.A.B.L.E. Program will help the health care providers you taught?

The S.T.A.B.L.E. Program provides an excellent review for common neonatal problems with reminders so the provider does not miss the diagnoses that could lead to serious consequence by providing consistent ways to use the mnemonic enhancing memory and recall. This provides confidence in stabilizing the sick babies before transport. The cardiac module was very useful for all staff including physicians as a learning tool for understanding the anatomy of CHD as well as diagnosing and managing CHD correctly and safely. 

How others can help with your humanitarian efforts

We welcome any donation to TPAAF, our non-profit organization. https://tpaaf.us/

Kris Karlsen (STABLE Program Author) is very kind, very generous and very supportive. She gave us a good discount for the manuals to help our medical mission in Thailand, we are very thankful and very appreciative.

In summary, I and our team cherished the whole experience and found that all the students were very excited, attentive, and very happy. 

Thank you very much very much Kris, Beth, Mason, and S.T.A.B.L.E program for the creation of this wonderful neonatal education program.

Materials donated from The S.T.A.B.L.E. Program for your course: 

6^th Edition Learner Manuals

2^nd Edition Cardiac books. 

6^th Edition Learner Course slides on USB. 

2^nd Edition Cardiac slide program subscription

Before the class

STABLE Maharat

Class completed

Equipment Donation

 Dr Pichaya Thanomsingh – Course Organizer (2^nd from the left) 

Dr. Boonyapredee and his wife 

Gifts of Appreciation given to Dr. Boonyapredee