Violet Kieu is a fertility doctor and writer from Melbourne, Australia, who writes memoir about medicine and motherhood. This author photo was taken during a medical elective in Saigon, Vietnam. “Medical Elective in Vietnam” appears in the Fall 2020 Intima.
Global citizenship is humanity that transcends borders.
Going to Vietnam was a formative time of my life–and also a reminder I am not entirely of that place. I am distance, and culture and language apart. Doing a medical elective in Saigon was a paradox—both familiar and foreign.
It is an ongoing cognitive dissonance that I was born in Australia, and yet have family history elsewhere. This duality allows novel ways to contribute: actions and words to hold that tension, that liminal space many people must feel–I am here, but there are people there that matter, and that I matter to.
My poem “Medical Elective in Vietnam” (Fall 2020 Intima) examines how place and people can change our identity. Similarities exist with the essay “Dust” by Dr. Mary Pan (Spring 2016 Intima) in her reflective piece on International Health in Kenya. In it, she remarks: “It seemed like something I could do. Just like working in the small hospital for a month, learning and teaching. It felt like I was helping; contributing my time and that ream of EKG paper.”
For me, I note the randomness of life and social determinants of health:
As you look out as the sun rises over motorbikes parked
Electricity wires tangled and thick,
You realize that this could have been your life.
If not for the war
The diaspora of being scattered like a spore
Into deep Commonwealth.
Similarities and differences describe our experiences. Dr. Pan’s description of medical sleep: “I slept in my scrubs. It was a restless sleep, and on-call sleep. The kind of half sleep where your mind won’t turn off, skimming on the surface, bobbing just below consciousness, ready to pounce.” My description of the darkness:
Saigon by night makes you
A nocturnist on a twilight-shift,"
No universal health care, the user pays.
Sparks of violence become de rigueur:
Ear chopped off in brawl,
Neck lacerated in attempted suicide.
Her description of disordered wards: “Walking through the wards sometimes felt like avoiding land mines—scattered bedpans, people washing themselves with soapy water, buckets of vomit, trays of chai, plates of yesterday's food.” My observation of familial piety:
You witness love in a hospital –
Relatives spoon cháo gà (chicken soup)
Brush teeth, comb hair.
Where patients rotate,
Four to a bed
Head to tail, and floor mattress below.
A note of caution to the traveler: the privilege to move and provide care means a responsibility to deep support for both the caregiver and the receiving team. Populations are affected by individual actions in an interconnected world.
We both remember the final goodbyes. Hers: “I’ll never see him again. I’ll never forget him.” Mine continues to question the experience:
That being Vietnamese now means
Being an outsider,
In the country of your ancestors.
Are you a medical tourist, too?
Improved international care should incorporate cultural sensitivity, collective debrief and the recognition that human medicine matters everywhere.
Anywhere can be someone’s home.
Violet Kieu is a fertility doctor and writer from Melbourne, Australia, who writes memoir about medicine and motherhood. This author photo was taken during a medical elective in Saigon, Vietnam.. Her poem “Medical Elective in Vietnam” appears in the Fall 2020 Intima.
©2021 Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine