16G Mission Trip Blog

The day after we wrapped up our shadowing experience at UMC Hospital, I remember waking up late with Jeffrey and missing breakfast. Still half-asleep, I threw on my neon green 16G merch and a pair of jeans, then joined the rest of the group as we headed out to Trường Tình Thương Ái Linh for the first part of our scholarship program. On the bus ride there, I was still groggy and feeling a bit drained, but I ended up chatting nonstop with Bill, which surprisingly woke me up com

Our day started as usual with a call time at 8 AM. I remember still feeling jet lagged so I napped the entire bus ride to our first stop of the day at the Trung Tinh Thuong Ai Linh Middle School. I had to deliver a speech to introduce our scholarship program (in English of course), but compared to the MC script I had to follow for the first day of shadowing at UMC, this was light work. After the speech, there were a few more speeches made by our very own Dr. Bui with some adv

Today is Day 4 of shadowing, our last day at UMC! My body was so sore from the long hours of standing over the past few days. For this rotation, I was placed in the cardiovascular surgery department with Michelle, Dalena, Bao, Danny, Clara, and our lovely Dr. Phung. I was already sweating as one of the staff led us to the department’s conference room. One of the staff, as well as the head surgeon, gave us a rundown of the department and the types of cases they typically handl

For this day, MEMO had its last shadowing day at UMC. Although it was the fourth day, our learning experiences were still very unique and interesting! I was assigned to OB-GYN. We were able to see a range from c-sections to oncology surgeries. All of the staff (doctors, nurses, coordinators, etc.) were such a great help in explaining procedures. There were so many different tools and methods that I have never heard of before for non-invasive surgeries, cutting techniques, and

We started our day bright and early at 7am, Michelle was very kind and ordered Viet coffee for everyone. It was much warmer today, so it was super refreshing! We arrived at the University Medical Center much more awake and ready to tackle the day. That being said, the trek up the multiple flights of stairs was even more daunting with the added heat. Today, my shadowing rotation was gastroenterology (GI) - the branch of medicine focused on the digestive system! We saw a patie

The sun came out for us for the first time since arriving to Vietnam on Shadowing Day 3! As we drove to the hospital, I felt both nervous and excited for the department I was assigned to: OBGYN! After we met with a staff member at our unit, our group of 7 was split into 3 different teams to check out the operating floor, the clinic floor, and the ultrasound floor. For the morning, the plan was to tour our floors, and then switch after lunch. Ian, Nina, and I were led up the s

Our second shadowing day continues at UMC. This time, I was in the cardiology department. Our guide, a cardiologist, shows us around the unit, and the first thing I noticed was the amount of equipment. EKG machines, treadmills, and the like seem to populate a good amount of rooms in the department. The cardiologist then took us into the meeting room, where he showed us the digital system the hospital uses to access patient history, info, and other information. According to th

Hello, hello!! Today is Day 2 of shadowing at UMC Hospital. I woke up bright and early at 6:00 a.m. for breakfast and to get ready. To be honest, I’m still pretty jet-lagged—it’s only our third day in Vietnam. I even woke up before my alarm! I was especially excited for shadowing today because I was going to observe orthopedic surgery. I’ve never shadowed a surgery before, so I had no idea what to expect. We took the bus to the hospital and got into our groups. Shout-out to B

I started the morning by putting on my professional attire, along with my MEMO and UMC name tags. For breakfast, I enjoyed an aromatic bowl of Pho Ga (chicken noodle soup), which gave me a much-needed energy boost for the exciting first day ahead! When our bus arrived at UMC, I was amazed by how crowded and bustling the hospital was, with every lobby chair filled with waiting patients. The 16Gers and providers all made our way to the conference room on the 3rd floor, where th

Kick-starting off 16G, we went to visit old and new friends at UMC, or University Medical Center HCMC! Before hopping on to our buses, everybody got breakfast at the downstairs hotel, all dressed in our business casual attire. I could feel the excitement in the air as people were conversing and sharing to each other on which departments they would be shadowing today at UMC, but before that, we had the heart ceremony to look forward to where we get to meet with the children wh

Today was the official start of our 16G mission trip! I was extremely excited and grateful to be starting off the trip with the Heart Ceremony. This ceremony extended thanks to MEMO’s partners– Cardiac Life Foundation, Vinacapital Foundation, and Heartbeat Vietnam– who work in tandem with MEMO to sponsor and coordinate heart surgeries for children with congenital heart disease. This year also celebrated MEMO and our partners being able to carry out 100 heart surgeries. It was

Well today is the day we fly off to Vietnam!!! The day started with me packing my luggage and all the things I needed for Vietnam! Packing went smooth as this is my 3rd time going. Riding with Mathew to the Ontario airport at 8:30 pm which was a little late as call time was at 8, everything seemed surprisingly smooth and everyone was able to check in. BOD of course were the last ones to check in due to having to package boxes last minute. Though i was a little weary of flying

Salutations 16G blog viewers! We are about to take flight on Starlux Airlines from Ontario to Taipei and then to Saigon! I arrived at the Ontario International Airport an hour before check-in call time. I was very surprised to see how relatively chill it was navigating the airport compared to LAX. We had plenty of time to relax and talk to familiar MEMObers before boarding time. As Nina and I were walking to our gate, we saw a Skittles vending machine. I was intrigued, but un

Today was social day! We had our potluck first and then we had our activities. The food was so yummy and everyone bought such a wide variety. There was so much food too and it was so cute how everyone bought a bit of something and it ended up working out for everyone. My favorite food was the Korean rice cake and of course my vegan Mac and cheese (although it needed a bit more salt). After we ate and mingled with each other for a bit, we were called to the field to start our

After a long day of medical training and packing, the social officers (Jeffrey, Dan, & Nina) + Hallie and I started the Sunday to scout out the location for the social! We lost our original spot to a man playing frisbee so we relocated to a nice shaded picnic area. The sun was beaming but we had a fun time practicing Vietnamese as we all tried to tell our team leaders what character from PvZ we are. We did a relay race as well where team Guacodile somehow finished 3 minutes b

Today is dental training (alongside with medical training later into the day). The day started bright and early at 7:45 AM. This is honestly probably the earliest I’ve woken up in a while; definitely giving us a hint of what mission trip is going to be like. The training took place at Dr. Bui’s dental clinic in Newport Beach. Thankfully, it was not too far so it didn’t take that long to arrive at the clinic. When we got started, MEMObers were split into different groups. Each

We started off bright and early in the morning for packing day. Unlike last year, this year’s packing was before training rather than after the social so we had to wake up earlier. Due to some address mishap we even ended up a few minutes late, but by the time we arrived at the right location we saw everyone else still loading off our packing materials so we were actually right on time. Alicia and I helped everyone unload materials from their cars and bring them up to the pac

Hi everyone! Today BOD and board members were able to help out with packing day to bring all our supplies over to Vietnam over at MemorialCare. Everyone was hard at work and filling all the boxes, playing Tetris to get everything to fit, and taping and labeling the boxes for shipment. From the toys and clothes for orphanages, to all our medical supplies, we were able to pack most of everything. Compared to previous years, we're purchasing a large bulk of our PPE medical suppl

Here we are, medical training day! The day is extremely hot it feels like it is truly in preparation for Vietnam. Luckily, we are training inside the MemorialCare building. I begin to slowly meet some of the members coming along the trip. There are some familiar faces from my previous trip (14G) and lots of new. I am super excited and it is interesting that for many it is their second or third mission trip– it feels like we have genuinely a great team. It is an energetic crow

Less than 2 weeks away from the mission trip, and everything felt so surreal. All the work that we have put into MEMO's missions is finally coming to fruition. Today is our training day. We're going to be reminding 16Gers on what to expect for the mission trip as well as refresh them on vitals training. It was going to a busy day, because on top of 3-4 hours of training, officers and BOD members had to get to Memorial Hospital early to pack boxes and gets things set up for th