Speeches Shim
When COVID-19 first hit Vietnam, 5th-year medical student Dương Thuỳ Linh felt confused, scared, and unprepared. Knowing she was a medical student of Thai Nguyen University of Medicine and Pharmacy, many friends and relatives looked to her for advice and information about the coronavirus, but she couldn’t provide help, responding, “it is a novel viral strain, I don’t know either.”
Thanks to the tenacious leadership of President Trump, the U.S. is leading the global response to the pandemic. The U.S. Government has committed more than $20.5 billion to fight COVID-19, including more than $1.6 billion in State Department and USAID assistance. I want to thank the other donor governments joining us today for their humanitarian leadership. I echo Deputy Secretary Biegun’s comments about how important it is to convene this group.
Associate professor Ngô Viết Quỳnh Trâm is the head of the Microbiology Faculty, Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy (Hue UMP). Hue UMP is one of ten medical universities in Vietnam promoting medical education reform through USAID’S Improving Access, Curriculum and Teaching in Medical Education and Emerging Diseases (IMPACT-MED) Alliance. In the spring of 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Health distributed guidance on prevention and response on COVID-19 to medical and health professors, including Dr. Trâm. She was then tasked with conveying that guidance on to her students. Concerned over how to best deliver such an extensive amount of content both quickly and efficiently, she turned to her experience over the past three years with IMPACT-MED. Utilizing skills gained from the IMPACT-MED program, she and other colleagues developed learning objectives, proactive assessments and teaching methods to deliver 20 theoretical and practical training courses for 450 final-year medical students from May to June 2020. These comprehensive training courses covered preventive medicine, treatment, and applications in public health, and elicited enthusiastic student feedback. Additional medical residents and post-graduate students also enrolled in the subsequent optional courses offered in July.
Dr. Huỳnh Thị Vân is the Head of the Infection Control and Prevention Department of Binh Dinh Provincial General Hospital, in Binh Dinh Province. Often described by her colleagues as a proactive leader and exuberant learner, Dr. Vân always tries to stay updated on the latest cutting-edge knowledge in medicine. In early 2020, she participated in a program developed by the USAID-supported Improving Access, Curriculum and Teaching in Medical Education and Emerging Diseases (IMPACT-MED) Alliance to train health workers and strengthen health systems in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yemen is facing the COVID-19 pandemic with a healthcare system that has been hollowed out by years of conflict, greatly reducing its ranks of medical practitioners. With just 10 healthcare workers per 10,000 people, Yemen is well below the international standard of 41 per 10,000. For job-seeking Yemenis, however, the unmet demand for health professionals offers a promising employment opportunity—especially for women—if they can access the training they need to succeed.
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