You never can tell what life will bring!
When I was in secondary school, every time I watched my teachers at the blackboard teaching with such passion and enthusiasm, a dream took shape in my mind: I too wanted to become a teacher one day, so that I could stand at the blackboard just as they did and pass knowledge on to my own pupils.
Every day the children in my neighbourhood would come and take turns asking me about their lessons, because I was one of the top pupils. I explained things to them very patiently, and I saw it as my chance to practise being a teacher. I held on to that hope right through upper secondary school. But life never tells you what is coming, not even about your own dream. When it came time to fill in my university application, my parents did not want me to sit for teacher training, because graduates find it very hard to get work afterwards. That is simply how things are now: looking at the older students from our district who studied teacher training, almost none of them ended up working in their own field once they had their degree; most went south to work in factories. My parents said that in this day and age a good, steady job costs a great deal of money, and our family could not afford it. They wanted me to study medicine, because that makes it easier to find work. I was truly torn at that point: on one side my dream, on the other my parents' hopes. In the end, although I really did want to be a teacher, once I heard my parents out, out of love for my mother and father I sat the entrance exam for Huế University of Medicine and Pharmacy, in preventive medicine. Back then, out in the countryside, there was not enough information to go on, so I did not know which field to choose; I saw the older students all applying for preventive medicine, so I registered for it too, even though I later learned that my score was high enough for general medicine.
During my student years, I met patients every day from all sorts of circumstances, and in my free time I joined volunteer trips to the highlands to help the older members of the team with charity clinics. Through that, I came to understand at least in part what illness feels like for these people: every trip to hospital is a huge obstacle, money is scarce, and with little schooling it is even harder for them to reach a medical facility. Each time I went into the hospital I would look around and see so many people who had packed up and travelled from far-off villages to the city, clutching their poor-household insurance cards, waiting from early morning to be seen, one after another; there are so many patients that the time given to each one is limited. My heart went out to those who had come such a long way from the countryside to a city hospital, spending time and money on the journey only to come away with nothing. When I learned of the television programme about people in desperate circumstances who need everyone's help when they fall ill with incurable diseases, I found one more reason to give it everything I had. That sank deep into my mind, and from that moment on I always nursed the belief that medicine was the only road by which I could fulfil both of those wishes — to be a good physician and a good teacher, one with heart, with integrity and with passion. So I resolved to study as well as I could, so that one day I might be a lecturer and a doctor at my own university.
Understanding that, I have pushed myself from my very first days at school to pursue that goal. And now that dream has begun to take shape. Over the past four years I have earned distinction both in my studies and in conduct. Even so, there have been many obstacles on my road to success: financial hardship, the conditions I have to study in, and above all the field I chose, "preventive medicine". Set a preventive medicine doctor beside a general practitioner, and of course people will choose the general practitioner. But how few understand how necessary a preventive medicine doctor is. Yet however hard it gets, none of it can make me falter; I never feel sad or discouraged, because "a smile can change a day, a hug can change a week, a word can change a life". I cannot confidently tell a patient that I will certainly cure their illness, but I will help them improve and enjoy better health. My hope is that after I finish my studies I will go on to Japan for specialist training and then return to the very university where I am now studying, to become a good lecturer, one with integrity, ability and passion, and go on guiding the generations that come after me. Whenever I think of that I am very happy, and I remind myself that I must be diligent and devoted, that I must study my field and foreign languages as well as I can and take part in as many social activities as possible in order to understand things more deeply, in the words of Einstein that I have always taken as my motivation: "Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value."
I know the road I have chosen will not be smooth but full of thorns, and yet I will keep walking it, and I am certain I will get there, because it is my dream, my aspiration, my longing, the wish I have nursed within me all this time. I am doing everything within my power to reach the goal that waits ahead of me.
Đoàn Vũ Lực Đồng Giang, Đồng Hóa, Tuyên Hóa, Quảng Bình Field: Preventive medicine Huế University of Medicine and Pharmacy
