“My family moved to America in 1975 when the communist party took over Vietnam. My dad wasn’t even 18 years old when he was forced to leave, coming to America by himself and never having spoken English. He was adopted, since he was under the age of 18, and finished out his high school education. He worked several jobs to be able to send money back to his family in Vietnam for 10 years in the hopes they might be able to join him here one day. He managed all this while studying like crazy to become a podiatrist. Because of his hard work, most of his family was able to join him here in the states. His father died while being held captive in jail by the communist party and his mother died from a stroke before they could come to America.
At the same time, my mom came over with her family. She had to move a lot when she was younger because my Grandpa was doing various residency programs in Tyler and Rusk before he finally settled in Richardson. Her uncle became a dentist in California and helped create a large dental chain. Spending her summers there influenced her to start studying to become a dentist and follow in her family’s footsteps. Almost everyone in my family has gone into some kind of medicine. My mom’s whole side of the family are dentists, my dad is a podiatrist, and my grandpa and great grandpa both practiced medicine in Vietnam.
All of this has influenced why I want to become a doctor today. My grandpa is my biggest role model and seeing him care for his community and want to help people in need has driven me to follow in his footsteps. He has the biggest heart of anyone I know and devotes so much time to caring for his patients. He’s 88 years old and still practices 6 days a week just because he wants to give back to the community so much! I think he’s also influenced me wanting to pursue family medicine as well. I love to talk with people over a long period of time and really get to know them just like he does. Not to mention, having spent so much time at my mom’s dental practice growing up I was able to really connect with her patients. Over the years, they were able to watch me grow up and that’s really where my love for connecting with people came from.
My Grandpa’s drive for community service has also influenced my passions and activities. I’m currently one of three San Antonio trip leaders for Frontera de Salud. We help plan public health events and wellness checks for communities that don’t have access to primary care physicians. These events have been really important lately, you know, with COVID-19 and having a ton of misinformation circulating. Right now, the number one thing on my mind is helping out with setting up sports physicals for Wood Middle School in San Antonio. It’s a really important event because a lot of the kids going to school there are from single-parent households who can’t take off work to take them to see a doctor to get cleared to play sports like basketball, football, volleyball, etc. Growing up and just being able to have that experience is such a big part of being a kid. So it’s amazing to be able to help them both in their physical well-being but also mental and social well-being.”
Author: Allie Vasak, Photo: Allie Vasak