Doctor and Friend

By Ekaphone Phouthonesy

What is the best medical treatment in the world? Many might have a picture in mind of a big hospital, modern equipment and quality medicines, but a female doctor, Duangchai Southammouny, has a different method. In parts of her treatment she uses words to cure patients.

From the doorway, her small treatment room in Mother and Child Health Centre in Oudomxay looks very simple, containing only a basic piece of equipment, an atom fetal Doppler machine.

Posters illustrate different positions of a baby inside its mother's womb. In fact the clinic looks the same as any in rural Laos .

“I feel a little pain in my belly,” the patient tells her doctor. “Your baby is growing; you should avoid sleeping with your husband,” she replies while applying the fetal Doppler to check the baby's health.

One by one the 30-year old doctor gives health checks to mothers waiting outside the room. She is exhausted but knows she has a vital role to play when she sees each patient.

“I am a bit tired but as a doctor, we have to act as a kind advisor,” she says as she sees another patient. “Words are magic medicine.”

Duangchai is gaining trust from others who seek better health care. Most of the patients who visit the center say that it is not the only one they can visit for mother and child health care, but that they appreciate the sympathetic manner of the doctor.

Patients describe Duangchai as a kind doctor who makes them feel free to talk, gives them health care advice and tells them how to take care of themselves and their babies during their pregnancy.

“I like her because she speaks warmly,” one patient told the Vientiane Times. She says the place is well known among pregnant women around the province. “Everyone knows Dr. Duangchai.”

As a doctor it is necessary to make patients feel at home before giving them a health check. She starts with sabaidee , then asks how members of their families are keeping. This makes the visitor feel comfortable, the doctor says.

“When they are happy to talk to the doctor, they speak about their problems, and we are able to get to the real cause of their illness,” she says.

In Lao society, doctors like Duangchai are rare. The way she acts and talks displays a strong understanding of what is essential for all medical professionals. In Vientiane , the conduct of medical workers has come under fire for poor doctor-patient relations and an absence of the ethics and responsibility needed for quality health care.

Many complain that doctors are rude to their patients.

A nurse working at the center says that Duangchai is a patient doctor who comes to work early in the morning and sometimes stays late to give health checks to pregnant mothers.

Duangchai reflects that her life today is very different from how it once was. A year of hardship and travel laid the foundations for the professionalism she prides herself on.

Duangchai was born into a middle-class family in Vientiane but fate brought her to Oudomxay, a province in northern Laos , some 700 km north of Vientiane . After marrying a doctor in 1992, she graduated from That Dam Medical School and traveled from Vientiane to Oudomxay, where she began a life as a nurse in the provincial hospital. Settling in to her new life was difficult.

“As a new resident of the town, I did not feel at home," she recalls. “It took me a few months to adjust myself to the new environment.”

The provincial hospital assigned the couple to Houn District, some 74 km west of Oudomxay, but she says this was a valuable lesson.

“Life is a long learning process,” Duangchai says. She adds that Houn District was where she found herself and adopted a new character that enabled her to talk calmly with the women she treated.

“Back then I did not dare to speak to people because of shyness, but now I am talkative, especially to my patients,” she says. “I learned from work and people, and I am continuing to learn.”

In Houn, Duangchai was offered a short training in family planning and other courses relevant to reproductive health in Luang Prabang and Vientiane . She says that the training was an important point in her life. It changed her from an ordinary nurse to a local specialist in child and maternal health at the Mother and Child Health Care Center.

After the training, she and her husband were called back to Oudomxay. Her husband now has a scholarship for a Masters Degree in Medical Science in Thailand .

Duangchai's journey started in Vientiane and ended in Oudomxay and Houn district. All of the places have provided her with different opportunities but a great deal of life learning.

Duangchai is human and like everyone she has her bad days, but she does not let her negative feelings affect her patients. “I sometimes go and express my sadness in the bathroom, but I have to be normal when I appear in public,” she says.