Viet Nam is My Personal Statement

So I wanted to start this blog with some background on my life and why Viet Nam is so important to me. The following is my personal statement (on why I wanted to go to medical school) that I wrote for my medical school application in 2001. It’s my story about my family and Viet Nam. It’s been an essay I have used as a foundation in subsequent essays when I am too lazy to be creative as a medical student.
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Cuong Pham – Personal Statement October 15th, 2001

It had been over fifteen years since I last felt Vietnam. Sitting on the plane to Saigon with hundreds of other Vietnamese returning to their homeland, I envisioned an exotic land of palm trees, white sands, and shimmering seas. In my thoughts, I neglected the poverty, the destruction, and the injustice that lay upon this land. I was sixteen years old and apprehensive about reliving my past. Vietnam held secrets of my heritage and culture that had been locked away from me. All my life, my past quietly hid within my American life. On the flight, my parents divulged a myriad of unheard stories about my family lineage of medicine men and the atrocities faced in the Vietnam War. I wanted to continue the family tradition through the form of modern medicine. The rawness of human suffering in Vietnam channeled my energy toward one purpose: securing health as a universal human right.

Seconds later, excitement and anxiety swept over all of us as we landed on Vietnamese soil. The anxiety stemmed from the Vietnamese American story of fleeing from the sorrow of one’s homeland. My first step outside was met by an assault of humidity and heat, heavy against my skin. This entire month of renewed contact with Vietnam began my drive to become a doctor.

I recalled all the years my parents spoke about our last contact with Vietnam. From fragmented stories, I imagined twenty-seven tired, hopeful people crammed onto a small boat in an unforgiving sea. Sixteen months old at the time, I clung to my mother for warmth. Waves ravaged our makeshift fishing boat as the water pushed itself through the cracks of the wood. Stocked only with sugar and fresh water, the supplies steadily dwindled. My parents grew sick from the sea and from the reality of death, but this sickness did not give way to fear. My parents had fought many obstacles beforehand and had grown numb; all that sustained them was the dream of a future in a new world. Vulnerable in the open waters, we fell victim to pirates who twice robbed us of our scant belongings and dumped our gas tank in search of gold. All we had left were the tattered sails that pulled us forward through the sea. With my father's military background, he guided us as best as he could. Still, as time wore on our hopes withered, until one day as if by magic, my father spotted land. It was Songkla, Thailand. This marked the beginning of a new future for the Pham family. It would turn out to be a future imbued with nostalgia for our homeland.

The future was now for me, and for an entire month back in Vietnam, I re-experienced the stinging salt water in the sea, the sweet fruits of Southeast Asia, and the frightening torture of poverty. I could speak and comprehend Vietnamese, but I lacked the ability to either read the language or utilize the full breadth of its vocabulary. Nevertheless, I easily understood my countless relatives through their gestures. Their genuine smiles and humor comforted me. They brought me around the villages in Vietnam to show me my heritage, culture, and birthplace. They strengthened my resolve to hold on to my wonderful memories that created the lone link to Vietnam. The experience added a tactile reality to the stories of my country and began resolving my dual Vietnamese American identity.

These memories of my people ultimately motivated me to become a medical doctor. Event after event opened my eyes to the dire reality of Vietnam’s health. I saw the horrors of Agent Orange afflicting generations of Vietnamese people. I witnessed a bloody roadside death of a young man from a motorbike accident. I encountered the begging homeless and the handicapped. Worst of all, I glimpsed the emptiness in the face of my stroke-surviving grandfather. Each moment left me a bit more chilled. The cold memories shaped a self-commitment; I promised myself to someday come back to Vietnam to help as a doctor.

Having witnessed the suffering of my people in Vietnam, my compassion for the disadvantaged swelled when I returned to the United States. In the last two years, I volunteered at a hospital, talking to patients in the rehabilitation and hospice unit. Growing up without my grandparents, these senior citizens enlightened me with their love of life and acceptance of death. Still, the inevitability of their deaths depressed me. Each weary face reminded me of my older relatives in Vietnam. Then I shadowed a pediatrician interacting with children with leukemia. The happiness of the children inspired me, but their dark reality saddened me. Each of their smiling faces reminded me of my little cousins in Vietnam. I became aware of how Vietnam highlighted my American life.

The twisted events of the Vietnam War shook the branches of my family tree, and yet this very war had fortuitously brought me to the United States. The United States is my passion, and Vietnam is my soul. Today at the age of twenty-one, I am now in a position to use my good fortune to give back to both the United States and to Vietnam. Although my distant future lies in the United States, I will someday suspend my American life to answer Vietnam’s call for my return. Medical school is my first stepping-stone home.