The Journey Begins

Let’s start from beginning. Michael and I are two students studying pharmacy at the University of Rhode Island. I am a P3 (5th year) student going into my final didactic semester, getting ready to start rotations & Michael is a P2 (4th year) student. We have been talking about/looking into different experiences that would not only give us an opportunity to travel and see different parts of the world, but also the chance to work and see how pharmacy/healthcare is different in other areas. We stumbled across a program through ELI Abroad (a company offering global volunteer/internship opportunities) and decided that this was what we were going to do. Our contact at ELI suggested a program that is specialized and tailored to pharmacy students. The clinic in Vietnam is responsible for the manufacturing of most of the vaccines and medications distributed throughout Southern Vietnam, so pharmacy students can split their time between the lab and the clinic.

Our adventure began at JFK airport in New York with a 20 hour flight + additional layovers + bus transit to and from airports and brought us to the most populated city in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City. We spent two days in HCMC to get oriented to the country/Vietnamese culture/temperature (85 degrees, 95% humidity 24/7) with the help of our guide/translator/surrogate mother/best friend, Vi Huỳnh. Miss Vi showed us some of the attractions in HCMC like Ngọc Hoàng Điện (Jade Emperor Pagoda), the Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica (the city’s cathedral), and a number of other places influenced from French architecture when Vietnam was part of French Indochina in the late 19th century. 

After our couple days to orient in HCMC, we took an 8 hour bus ride from 10pm on New Year’s Eve and arrived at Da Lat, Vietnam in 2019 (Happy New Year!!) where the temperature was 65 degrees and there was a pleasant breeze.

Upon arriving in Da Lat, we had the day off since the clinic was closed due to New Year’s, so Vi, Michael and I spent another day exploring and learning about our new home for the next three weeks. We walked to the clinic where we will be working (a nice 5 min commute from our hotel) and then to a local market where Vi picked up some ingredients to make us an authentic Vietnamese meal at her apartment. Michael and I then had some time to ourselves to further explore the downtown area and speak and interact with some of the locals at different shops and food stands.