We enjoy， laugh and cry of happiness
This is a great opportunity to participate with the Mongolian medical mission this time. It is always my dream to pilgrim my hero Changgis Khan’s birthplace， Mongolia， because he was the only person who conquered both Asia and Europe continents and I learn this time Changis means “Ocean” in Mongol ( emperor from ocean to ocean). I should consider this is a lucky journey， because we found wonderful people like Chingun， Zaya， Inger and the personnel of Darkhan Hospital who helped us lots to make the mission accomplished.
My observation and recommendation for next trip will be following:
(1)The member should be in strict vegetarian one week prior s to departure to Mongolia， because there is meat， meat and meat， all variety of meat and all form to prepared them， goat， mutton， beef， and chicken. Even the pizza was with mutton flavor.
(2)We had our doubt about if we need bring our own medications there since most of then the patient can buy themselves， our translator told us that the local people believe foreign drugs are more effective and free. I think we should bring our drugs as well， because we are used to prescribe them and we know its potency. Just in case of disease in which we need use other drugs we can let the patient buy.
(3)Since I had two experiences with abroad medical missions， one of Myanmar last year in which our target was different. In Myanmar the attention was directly to public in which we just gave drugs， but in this case the relation was hospital to hospital， I think we should use combine modalities， medical attention and transfer experiences to the local medical staffs. For example I meet a young girl of 26 years old with left elbow contraction due to scar formation after a severe burn injury， in which the plastic surgeon can easily debride the wound and release her scar， after rehabilitation the arm function will totally recovered but without any treatment her arm will disable forever due to ankyloses. An easy operation may save her left arm.
(4)The cooperation between hospitals to hospital must construct on
mutual trust and reciprocity basis. I do not think we are better than the Mongolian physicians， we meet very brilliant， well trained Mongolian medical staffs. To concrete the idea; we can have combine meetings in which the local physician can provide us some clinical case in which they can’t deal with， therefore we can send our specialty of the fields with such experience， joint together to resolve the problem. If the patient needs operation we also can bring our surgeons to Darkhan to show them how to operate ( I saw the Korean surgeon showed the Mongolian how to operate total knee replacement (TKR)). Of course this may need time to prepare all process， beginning with case selection， medical journal research， discussion both sides specialists etc.
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To accelerate the process we should set a final date and schedule for communication， letters should be replied in a determinate period of time in agreement of each side. That will be a serious compromise to execute the program also that will show the interest of each part to accomplish the target as well.
Finally I want conclude that the international cooperation is a very complicate issue， we need to respect the local people’s need and thinking， we should jump out the paradigm of donation of equipment and drugs giving exclusively and trying to find out other way to archive the goal， improving the local patient’s life quality reaching a win-win status， perpetuation the love of God as the foreign missionaries did to Taiwanese 100 years ago.
PS: Special thanks to misses Pauline and Wenchin， they did the best and struggle for us in any details， without them as our supporting staffs we can’t have our best performance here at Mongolia， also our team members which we enjoy， laugh， cry (of happiness when our Odysseus luggage arrived).