Reflections on Fulbright journey and community health

Me (on the far left) in rural Vietnam with my mother and little sister in 1996. We immigrated to the U.S. in 2002 when I was 9 years old. Little did I know that I'd also get to know U.S.'s neighbor, Mexico, pretty intimately.

Having grown up in a close-knit community in rural Vietnam, I’ve always understood community-engagement as an integral part of my learning. I see the vibrant community as an extension of the classroom. What excites me, however, is not just access to the community, but my own commitment to ethical community-engagement. These efforts where scientists involve community members leaders in study design, recruitment, and overall input remain rare in academia. I wanted to dismantle the academic ivory tower and to extend these values of inclusion and discovery to those we serve.

My interest in upstream solutions drew me to the Community Health and Prevention Research (CHPR) M.S. program at Stanford, which I completed alongside with my undergraduate degree in Human Biology. I became fascinated with community-engaged research efforts that garnered the stakeholders’ voices to make the case for health equity. For the past 14 months, I was fortunate to receive a Fulbright grant to conduct community health research in Yucatan, Mexico. In this rural village of Mayan ancestry called San Crisanto, I felt humbled by the insights that emerged from a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project to build a health clinic. I explored how the community members fought for the much-needed health services and also helped assess current community well-being. During these nine months as a Fulbright researcher, I witnessed the daily needs and triumphs of an under-resourced community much like my rural village in Vietnam.

"Flamingos of San Crisanto" Photo Credit: Kevin and Keira (my middle school students). I was lucky to call this place home for the past 14 months.

Among my most inspiring experiences was my time with the CBPR women participants, who called themselves “Luchonas por la comunidad,” or the “Fighters for the community.” Their successful advocacy for the health clinic confirmed my theory that when a community unites strongly, they can demand successfully their right to health. Having experienced firsthand the power of community-engaged research, I hope to facilitate more of these efforts as a future physician leader and health advocate to tackle health inequities upstream.

Dolores, Doña Alicia, and Tere were among the mentors and friends who helped me tremendously throughout this process

Emerging from CHPR and my Fulbright research journey, I could not imagine a more fulfilling path than dedicating my life to medicine, health advocacy, and community-engaged research for long-term, community-driven solutions.

I do not want to be my patients’ voice. Instead, I want to serve as a vessel for their own voices. I want to cultivate relationships that empower community members to join these medical decision-making and scientific spaces. I want to forge a path truly rooted in my personal upbringing–one in which I am constantly serving, learning, and collaborating alongside communities. As an aspiring physician and health advocate, I see community-engagement as a tool for deep listening– and one as important to me as my future stethoscope.

On my last day at San Crisanto before heading back to Stanford, I was greeted with a double rainbow (difficult to see in my low-tech photo, was way better in person) in the midst of a misty afternoon. I will miss San Crisanto's beauty--and its beautiful, warm-hearted people there even more.

I hope to return one day as a medical doctor. In the meanwhile, I will treasure these lessons and memories as an inspiration for my ongoing commitment to community health.

-Vyoleta