British Medical Team in Vietnam Archive

Date range: 1954-2021

Medium: Archive

Number of items: 110 items.

The British Medical Team in Vietnam was a group of doctors and nurses who treated patients at the Benh vien Nhi Dong children’s hospital in Ho Chi Minh City. The medical team had been formed and sent to work at the hospital as part of a United Kingdom Ministry of Overseas Development scheme, in lieu of British military support for the United States of America during the Vietnam War. The team’s remit was to provide medical support to children suffering from the war, during a period of a shortage of doctors in Vietnam.

This small collection consists primarily of printed material and correspondence relating to a British medical team, which was based in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s: known as ‘The British Medical Team in Saigon’ [Ho Chi Minh City].

Some members of the team documented their time in Vietnam through writing and photographs. The partner of Dr. Evans, who was there in the first year, Barbara Evans (1909-1995) published a book entitled Caduceus in Saigon, detailing her observations of Ho Chi Minh City from August 1966 to August 1967, a copy of which is included in this collection. Another printed memoir included is House of Love: Life in a Vietnamese Hospital by Susan Terry (fl. 1960s-2000s), who also spent a year (during the same period) in Vietnam, as a nurse, as part of an Australian medical team in the Long Xuyen Hospital. Also included are two photograph memoirs by team member Martin Slater (fl. 1950s-2000s), documenting the children's hospital (including the laboratory), staff and their families and photographs from Slater's travel elsewhere in Vietnam.