Mekong Memories: Pueblo Doctor Revisits Vietnam Days in New Book
By Amy Matthew, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.
Apr. 3–Forty years after he first landed there, a Pueblo doctor has chronicled his experiences in Vietnam.
Dr. Carl Bartecchi’s initial visit to the country was an unexpected one. It came courtesy of the U.S. Army, which drafted Bartecchi in November 1964 while he was an intern at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Eleven months after that notice arrived he was on the ground in Soc Trang, in the Mekong Delta.
Bartecchi has written a book about his experiences: “A Doctor’s Vietnam Journal” recently was published by Merriam Press. It’s available through the Barnes and Noble Web site or at www.merriam-press.com ($29.95).
Bartecchi’s priority was, of course, treating sick and wounded U.S. soldiers. Presented a choice between working as a general medical officer with the infantry or being a flight surgeon, Bartecchi chose the latter n less chance of mud.
“I don’t like mud,” he said.
Conditions at the Soc Trang base were far from luxurious, but were better than many other places in the country. The pace of the work was unpredictable and actually led to a new opportunity for Bartecchi and his fellow doctors.
“There were times of unbelievable activity and times when there was nothing. Almost anywhere there’s a doctor, he doesn’t want to sit around doing nothing. You want to get out and find new things and people.”
They started by working with the local orphanage, where the children suffered from worms, skin infections and other maladies n “diseases of tropics, poverty and nutrition,” said Bartecchi.
“They didn’t get any meat or vegetables, just rice,” he said.
Bartecchi and the other doctors gave the children vitamins; other soldiers fixed the water supply so there would be clean water; and they obtained soap so the children could bathe regularly and the nuns could wash the bedding. Basic things that Americans don’t think twice about were life-changing for the Vietnamese.
“You do those things, you prevent most of the problems,” Bartecchi said.
Word of the children’s dramatic health improvement spread to the villagers.
“In those provinces we went to, the only medicine was folk medicine,” said Bartecchi. “All of a sudden, Western medicine comes and has antibiotics and aspirin. … People with arthritis were able to walk again. That felt real good.”
Medical help kept the doctors busy and became the way for them to establish trust with the Vietnamese.
“We actually saw a lot more civilians (than soldiers),” said Bartecchi.
Bartecchi’s book also gave him an opportunity to recognize the Vietnamese doctors with whom he worked, as well as those who worked for the North Vietnamese army.
“They had three M.D.s for the entire Viet Cong army (but) the Vietnamese don’t write about themselves,” he said. “We worked there one year and there must be 100 books (by American soldiers). These Vietnamese doctors worked 10 or 15 years under the most horrible conditions and (wrote) nothing.”
Bartecchi wrote about the past in hopes of raising money for his present cause. About 10 years ago, Bartecchi returned to Vietnam and established a relationship with doctors at Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi. That visit has evolved into a program that supplies Bach Mai with equipment and textbooks and brings teaching doctors to Colorado so they can study different medical specialties, which they then teach to their colleagues back in Hanoi.
Bartecchi decides which doctors come to the U.S. He works with numerous Colorado hospitals and the program primarily is funded by a branch of the Catholic Health Initiatives Colorado Foundation called Global Health Initiatives. CHI is the parent company of St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center.
“We have three doctors here now and will have three more this summer. We’ve trained six already,” said Bartecchi.
All royalties from “A Doctor’s Vietnam Journal” will go to the project. It has provided for many improvements at the hospital, which Bartecchi gets to see when he travels to Hanoi several times each year.
“It’s been really fascinating,” he said. “You come back and have to feel good about what we have here.”
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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