Exchange Fellowships: Fostering Lifetime Impacts

by Brian Teel, former REI Vietnam Country Leader

REI was created to bring a real exchange of ideas and understanding – to bring professional training, focused on equipping nationals to train others as they work together to build their communities and countries – while we receive deepened cultural understanding and refinement to why we do what we do the way we do it.

This is just a glimpse into how REI got started building one of its most effective programs in helping to bring this about.

REI Fellow and ENT surgeon, Dr. Tran training her Vietnamese resident physicians back in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

The Foundation is Laid

By 1995 following the first wave of REI’s short-term English, agriculture, and medical training seminars, a desire emerged within trip participants: “These trips are excellent. But wouldn’t their impact be deepened if we could pick key Vietnamese professionals to come to the US and see what is possible to accomplish in their fields of work?”  The REI volunteer and vocational staff went to work. 

Partnerships were created with U.S. universities and institutions, across medical, agricultural, educational and business sectors, providing opportunities to bring nationals to the U.S. to be hosted by American families for professional training and cultural experience. Vietnamese physicians were some of the first to come to the U.S. with REI’s developing exchange fellowship program. And by 2001, 33 Vietnamese professionals had completed exchange fellowships to the U.S. But a change was at hand that would grow this part of REI’s work.

Is the Door Closed?

REI dreamed of the capacity to issue exchange fellowships ourselves rather than through partner agencies. Pursuing opportunities provided through the U.S. government, we submitted our application in 2001to the State Department for three reasons.

• We could expand learning opportunities and hosting locations for exchange fellows.

• Exchange fellows would have increased exposure especially to family life in the U.S.

• This would deepen bonds between REI and the sending institutions.

Then to our dismay, the 9/11 crisis occurred and access to the U.S. was reduced. This was especially distressing, because even as it was occurring in the U.S., wonderful developments were underway in Hanoi.

Dr. Mickey Smith and Dr. Phillip Greig were REI’s first Ob/Gyn team to work in Vietnam. Even though these events in the U.S. cut their trip short at that point, they determined the strength of Vietnam was in their people and identified Dr. Nguyen thi Tan Sinh as an ideal candidate for an exchange fellowship. 

Could REI make the needed visa arrangements for her to come to South Carolina and observe their practices?

Priority 1 Accomplished

Thankfully, before 2001 concluded, REI was given authority to issue the needed exchange fellowship invitation. By early 2002, Dr. Sinh was in Greenville observing the latest development in Ob/Gyn patient care and deliveries from Dr. Smith, while Dr. Greig focused on training in High Risk Pregnancies.

The Ob/Gyn medical care and procedures in Vietnam would be significantly advanced when Dr. Sinh returned to Hanoi. Our first priority professional growth was accomplished, and subsequent trips to her hospital confirmed it.

The Smiths with Dr. Sinh

Priority 2 Experienced

There was something deeply personal occurring, though, during Dr. Sinh’s three-month stay in the Smith home.

Dr. Sinh was a natural to fit in with Dr. Smith’s family. His wife, Laurie, and their three daughters quickly welcomed her as a guest. Dr. Sinh bonded with them, as she observed and participated in the entire spectrum of American life as their family lived out their regular personal, professional, social, recreational, and religious routines.

Through her exchange fellowship, Dr. Sinh became close to the Smith family, the two families developing a lasting friendship that continues today. This friendship has allowed their families to share personally and deeply about all aspects of life. What a clear expression of our second priority to link Fellows personally to an American family.

Priority 3 Excelled

Mrs Lien (director of REI's Vietnam office) with the first conjoined twins to be separated in Vietnam through training REI helped provide - c. 2007

Next, the director of Hanoi’s National Children Hospital and Pediatric Surgeon himself, Professor Dr. Nguyen Liem (Dr. Sinh’s husband) came to the U.S. on an exchange fellowship in early 2003 to gain more understanding of transplant surgery at Mayo Clinic and U of VA with Dr. Robert Telander and Dr. Tim Pruett. And months later this knowledge was put to practice in Hanoi when Dr. Liem and Dr. Pruett together made Vietnamese history when they accomplished the first successful separation of conjoined twins.

Approximately 29 Vietnamese universities, medical centers, and institutions have sent exchange fellows to the U.S. with REI since we began our work there, and our third desire to deepen bonds with sending institutions has been wonderfully exceeded.

The Impact of Exchange Fellowships Today

It is difficult to overstate the impact that the exchange fellowships have had on the recipients in Vietnam. The last two directors of the National ENT Hospital in Hanoi and the last three of a key ENT partner hospital in Hochiminh City are former ENT exchange fellows.

Medically speaking, coming to the US on these fellowships has given vision as well as nurturing professional skills.

In addition, Mrs. Rebecca Hedges whose husband Dr. Craig Hedges completed 30 trips to Vietnam over 30 years and was honored in Hanoi last year, put it this way: “If we had not hosted REI Fellows, it would have just been Craig’s work. But hosting the fellows meant I and the children got to know them. And at one dinner honoring Craig last year in Hanoi, I realized, ‘I know these people! They were in our home!’”

After 30 years of traveling to Vietnam, Dr. Craig and Rebecca Hedges (center) celebrate with friends from the National Otolaryngology Hospital, Hanoi, Vietnam.

And, while Vietnam has provided a strategic place to build the foundation for this program and perfect how to utilize it, REI has provided this program in our other target countries as well, receiving exchange fellows from Laos and Nepal, where we’ve been sending short-term teams as well. In the past few years, REI has started sending teams to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, building relationships there to lay the groundwork for future exchange fellows.

REI’s tagline is “building people to build nations.” Exchange Fellowships are a critical piece in making that happen.