Greetings from Vietnam!
I just wrapped up a week-long comparative study trip where we compared health care systems and village life in Vietnam with what we’ve already learned and experienced in Thailand. Although I’m currently enjoying a much needed vacation on the beautiful Cat Ba Island, I’ll be headed back to Khon Kaen soon enough! After a few days of personal travel, we’ll be jumping back into classes and preparing for our second community visit – this time in a rural community – on October 12th.
A little bit about my stay in Vietnam. We’ve spent the past five or so days touring health care facilities on the national, provincial, district, and community levels. We also had the opportunity to visit an HIV/AIDS Clinic and a Lung Disease and Tuberculosis Hospital, where we dialogued with staff and visited labs and patient consultation facilities. Having toured a fairly developed teaching hospital on campus in Khon Kaen, and being accustomed to the level of care and medical resources in the states, this week has been eye opening. In all of the hospitals we visited, patients were receiving care two or three to a bed. While we were assured that there was good infection control, patient rooms were overcrowded, hospital hallways were open, and many patients were receiving medicine through injection, as opposed to a steady IV drip. Particularly in the busier hospitals, it was shocking to see differences between the healthcare system in Thailand and Vietnam, despite the countries being so close geographically.
Speaking of Thailand… I can’t wait to start our first research based homestay and really get the community engagement aspect of the program going! We’ll be spending three days conducting questionnaires and interviews in an attempt to further understand the health problems that are most affecting our community. We’ve spent countless hours in the classroom learning about research methods, survey styles, and village healthcare, but now it’s time to really get our hands dirty! This will be the first of three research based homestays – one in a rural community, one in a semi-rural community, and one in an urban community, for which we’ll be returning to the railroad tracks community near campus that we stayed with last month.
All of these homestays are leading up to our final project where each group will develop and hopefully implement an intervention to combat the perceived health risks in one of the communities that we visit. Needless to say, my November and December updates will likely be teeming with stories, revelations, and outcomes from our community work and field research!
The closer we get to research and intervention time, the more thankful I am that I chose a program that allows me to actually engage with and play a more active role in the community around me! The program also provides extra opportunities for students who want to immerse themselves even further. Recently, some of my friends visited a local orphanage and spent time with the children there while others have been busy conducting interviews and writing profiles of local villagers for the Isaan Record – a regional publication.
Until next time, it’s back to enjoying my final moments of relaxation before I board a bus and a boat and a bus and a car and a plane and a van back to Thailand!