The ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Travelling Fellowship provides the opportunity for two AOA members per year to visit a range of hospitals throughout Southeast Asia, learning and teaching in various settings that often vary greatly from the Australian hospital experience. The fellowship culminates in attendance and presentation at a major scientific meeting.
The experience invariably proves educative and inspirational, providing new experiences, an appreciation of the conditions in which peers in the region deal with a different set of common injuries and conditions, and a fresh perspective on the Australian surgical environment.
In 2015, after visiting Vietnam as an ASEAN travelling fellow, Dr Andrew Beischer established the Vietnamese Orthopaedic Observership Program (VOOP). This program sees pairs of orthopaedic surgeons and medical personnel sponsored for visits to Australia to study and observe Australian orthopaedic practice, and to attend scientific meetings.
In addition, Dr Beischer, alongside Dr Ton Tran, has spearheaded efforts to establish an ongoing relationship of surgical education and knowledge exchange between Australia and Vietnam. In addition to visits by Vietnamese orthopaedic surgeons to Australia, this relationship involves visits by AOA members to hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City to mentor surgeons, provide training and examine patients.
Drs Tran and Beischer were honoured with the Ho Chi Minh badge in recognition of their contributions to the Hospital of Traumatology and Orthopaedics, and one of their visits was featured on Vietnamese news.
The relationship has also resulted in the creation of the Friendship Library, a much needed resource of new textbooks to replace the decades-old books that previously filled the library of Ho Chi Minh City's Hospital for Traumatology and Orthopaedics.