To find out more or share your own success stories, contact
Lalitha BhagavatheeswaranProgramme Manager, BMJ Global Health Initiatives
A practising physician with over ten years’ experience, Dr Bui Minh Khoi works at Thuy Nguyen District Hospital in Hai Phong. He spends the majority of his time the in cardiopulmonary, anesthesiology and emergency departments. Recently, he has been using BMJ Best Practice and BMJ Learning to help him provide high quality patient care.
Dr Bui Minh Khoi faces significant challenges in his small rural Vietnamese hospital. In addition to insufficient human resources, resources such as labs, imaging diagnostic tools, equipment, and drugs are limited.
“I love BMJ Best Practice, because I can easily find clinical topics and read the relevant sections. The information is clear and the step-by-step instructions allow me to transfer to clinical practice immediately. ”
Dr Bui Minh Khoi, Thuy Nguyen District Hospital, Hai Phong
BMJ Best Practice is a vital diagnostic tool. Dr Khoi uses it to decide which tests to order, and when to refer patients to a specialist hospital for further investigation.
“This improves the quality of care for patients and makes it safer for doctors”, he explains.
BMJ resources also help Dr Khoi deliver the best treatment plans for his patients.”
“I follow the treatment algorithm in BMJ Best Practice; I always look at the first line of treatment and second line of treatment as well as any alternatives. This helps me give the patient the right treatment for them. It also saves time and money for both hospital and patient.”
Evidence-based medicine is very important. To keep up Dr Khoi looks at the latest topic updates on BMJ Best Practice and reads journal articles.
In the hospital, I use BMJ Best Practice to find instant answers on how to correctly diagnose or
treat the patient. When I come home, I read the full text to understand more about the disease.”
Dr Khoi regularly uses patient leaflets from BMJ Best Practice to understand what information he needs to provide to his patients. He says they increase his medical knowledge, increase his confidence, and improve how he communicates with patients.
I often see Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients in the cardiopulmonary department. It can be difficult to persuade these patients to use the inhalers I prescribe. With one
patient, I successfully used a video from BMJ Learning to encourage him to do
a spirometry test.”
Dr Khoi shares his knowledge with colleagues and hopes more doctors start using BMJ resources. His own success speaks for itself...
Before completing the BMJ Learning module on COPD, I got 60% correct but after completing the
module I got 100%”, he said with a huge smile on his face.”
Last week, I had a cardiac patient presenting with nausea, vomiting and bradycardia (slower than normal heartbeat).
I usually treat patients with bradycardia with intravenous atropine or epinephrine. After referring to BMJ Best Practice, I learned that you can also use dopamine to reset the hemodynamics.
I revised the indications for dopamine for this patient, then started a dopamine infusion and it worked well. This change in my clinical practice saved the unit time, reduced the patient’s nausea and vomiting, shortened their hospital stay, and saved them money.
Traditional textbooks list all the diagnostic tests and the physician has to choose. The diagnosis-investigation section on BMJ Best Practice helped me decide which tests to order first and when to use Holter monitoring.
I ordered a Holter monitor for my patient which helped me identify sinus sick syndrome. I referred the patient to a cardiac unit in another hospital and a permanent pacemaker was inserted.
Without BMJ Best Practice, I may just have treated the patient’s symptoms and sent him home, delaying his treatment and reducing his quality of life.
“Unlike other resources, BMJ Best Practice saves me a lot of time.”
