Singapore International Foundation

22 Feb 2010

Vietnamese medicos in Singapore to learn about death and dying issues

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Nineteen-day training programme by local medical social workers to touch on communication and coping strategies for families and patients facing end-stage diseases.

Singapore, 22 February 2010…From 23 February to 13 March, the Singapore International Foundation (SIF) will be hosting a training attachment in Singapore for four Vietnamese palliative care medical professionals from the National Cancer Hospital in Hanoi. The programme is supported by three Singapore medical institutions ? the National Cancer Centre, Changi General Hospital and Tan Tock Seng Hospital.

Through role-play, group work and other counselling exercises with Singapore medical social workers, the three Vietnamese doctors and a nurse will learn about basic case assessment and intervention skills; methods to communicate difficult news to patients and their families; mapping appropriate coping strategies; as well as planning and conducting patient education and support programmes.

The training attachment is part of the SIF’s Singapore Volunteers Overseas (SVO) Specialist Team (Psychosocial Skills in Palliative Care) project, a two-year (2008 – 2010) capacity-building initiative which aims to impart psychosocial skills and knowledge to Vietnamese doctors and nurses working with terminally ill patients.

As the project is mainly conducted in Vietnam by Singapore medical social workers, the purpose of the training attachment is to allow a selected group of Vietnamese participants the chance to experience a different practice environment in Singapore and to appreciate cultural differences when dealing with death and dying issues.

Mr Aaron Ng, the SIF’s Director of International Volunteerism and Community Partnerships, explains, “In Vietnam, the development of the social work sector is still in its infancy stage and there is no concept of medical social work. Thus, Vietnamese doctors and nurses are often expected to double up as counsellors to their patients and families. The work of our Singapore medical social workers, through the SVO Specialist Team (Psychosocial Skills in Palliative Care) project, contributes greatly to the SIF’s effort to educate and empower our Vietnamese friends in the profession of palliative care. This training attachment will be useful in helping the Vietnamese doctors observe firsthand the medical social work practice of their Singapore trainers. We hope that they will be able to find strength in the knowledge that they are not alone in their challenges and that their learning from this experience will be multiplied, when they return home and share them with their fellow medical professionals.”

SVO project team leader Dr Goh Soon Noi, who is also Senior Manager of Medical Social Services at the Changi General Hospital, adds, “Attending to a patient's psychosocial needs is integral in palliative care, an approach the doctors and nurses at the Hanoi's National Cancer Hospital has come to embrace through the SVO Specialist Team (Psychosocial Skills in Palliative Care) project. The attachment provides an intensive learning environment to observe, reflect on their own practical constraints and cultural nuances; apply and integrate the knowledge and skills into their clinical practice. Upon their return home, they will be the champions, advocating for such level of holistic care."

Dr Phi Yen Nguyen, Deputy Head, Department of Palliative Care and Pain Management, National Cancer Hospital, Vietnam, says, “Our team is looking forward to learning ways in which we improve our communication skills with patients and their families, as well as to understand more about team work and methods of conducting therapeutic group work sessions. Last but not least, we are interested to find out the role of medical social workers in Singapore’s healthcare system, which we hope we can try to emulate in our work processes back in Vietnam.”

In total, the SVO Specialist Team (Psychosocial Skills in Palliative Care) project will directly benefit some 30 Vietnamese medical professionals, resulting in improved care for at least 1,000 terminally ill patients in the country.