T. Pau Tran, M.D., had a dream.
UNMC’s emergency department research director, who died in 2012, planned to return to his native Vietnam to teach the U.S. approach to graduate medical education. He was going to improve patient care through better education in the region where he was born. He was going to make a difference.
“Paul dreamed of fostering closer academic collaborations in medicine between his birth country of Vietnam and the United States,” said his wife, Christine Nguyen.
Dr. Tran also had friends, many of them. They admired his compassion, his knowledge, his commitment to medicine and his drive. They appreciated all he had done for UNMC, all he had done for his students and his colleagues.
That is why, nearly a year after Dr. Tran passed away, his friends and colleagues in the department of emergency medicine are bringing his dream to life — pleased that they have a chance to see Dr. Tran’s project to fruition.
In April, Michael Wadman, M.D., and his colleagues received notice that they were awarded a $33,515 Vietnam Education Foundation/U.S. Faculty Scholar Program grant — the very grant that Dr. Tran had received, and which had to be withdrawn following his death.
Beyond Dr. Wadman, the project involves UNMC emergency medicine team members Thang Nguyen, clinical research nurse; Robert Muelleman, M.D., chairman of the department; Wesley Zeger, D.O., clinical director; Alisa Seidler, administrative operations lead for the department; and Laura Robinson, administrator for the department. Seidler and Robinson will not be part of the travel team.
“We reworked the grant and submitted it early last year,” Dr. Wadman said. “We are now making plans for two trips to Vietnam late this summer and fall.”
The project is essentially what Dr. Tran had envisioned. In addition to the two trips, UNMC faculty will participate in teleconferences with emergency physicians from Thai Binh Medical University, the Vietnamese partnering institution, between the visits and on an ongoing basis after the project is completed.
Although he lived most of his life in the United States, Dr. Tran felt his Vietnamese heritage and upbringing had shaped his life, Christine Nguyen said.
“Paul’s parents were born in Thai Binh (a coastal eastern province of northern Vietnam), and despite the separation in time and space, Paul never forgot his ancestral town,” she said. “After Paul and I made a trip to Thai Binh in 1998, Paul yearned to return and share what he had learned throughout his medical career.
“Paul wished to dedicate his life to leaving the world a better place.”
UNMC’s Department of Emergency Medicine founded the first emergency medicine residency program in Nebraska, and the lessons learned in that effort will help Thai Binh Medical University incorporate effective educational methods in graduate medical education, Dr. Wadman said.
“But we also will perform a needs assessment so that the tools and techniques we introduce fit well with their clinical environment,” he added.
After discovering which patient presentations are common and most critical for the region, the team will present the emergency medicine diagnostic approach, as well as focus on stabilization and initial treatment, including procedural skills.
“Airway management techniques, vascular access techniques and ultrasound for procedural guidance and bedside diagnostic purposes will make up the core of the procedural skills component,” Dr. Wadman said. “In the end, we are likely to learn quite a bit from our hosts, and this will allow us to tailor Graduate Medical Education residency and fellowship programs to our partner program in Vietnam.
“We may even learn some things that will help us here in our program, especially since we train residents that end up practicing in rural emergency departments without much back up,” he said.
“This was a well-thoughtout project by Paul,” Dr. Wadman said. “It’s definitely a worthwhile
project — but more than that, it was Paul’s dream.”
After Dr. Tran became ill, Dr. Wadman promised his friend that the department Dr. Tran had helped found would carry out the project.
“We talked a lot about this,” Dr. Wadman said. “We had to change some things — you can’t replace Paul — but it is entirely based on Paul’s idea.”
Dr. Tran wanted the people from his region of Vietnam to benefit from what he had learned in his career and at UNMC, Dr. Wadman said.
“He mentioned several times that this was what his career was all about — giving back to his students, residents and the community.”
Christine Nguyen said she and her daughters are touched by the efforts of Dr. Tran’s colleagues.
“Last year, my daughters and I were devastated to learn that the Vietnam Education Foundation had withdrawn the grant Paul received,” she said. “We are grateful to the team . . . for restoring the project’s grant and ensuring that Paul’s efforts weren’t in vain. We are touched that Paul will be remembered by his desire to improve medicine and education in his ancestral town.”
“We are all motivated to do this,” Dr. Wadman said. “It meant a lot to Paul — and it means a lot to the department.”