Teaching English; Medical Library Workshops

A note from Tom Linde, pyschologist and Group Health mental health faculty: "The  experience of the day was meeting 60 medical students at the Can Tho Medical University to give them some practice in English. My own subgroup of 8 were all 19 years old. Smart, curious, animated and adorable, every one. The large group laughed and applauded in learning that Mary and I were married, and my small group later asked me to tell our "love story". We also talked about hobbies, school, medicine and all sorts of other topics. I was struck by how hardworking these kids are, in a life which looks pretty austere - living in boarding houses most of them, in tiny shared rooms, taking the bus to visit home on Sundays. They study all the time. Asked about hobbies, they might listen to music once in a while. At the end of our discussion we took photos. Every one wanted pictures of virtually every combination on all their cameras, and were especially eager to have one-to-one shots, when they'd more or less snuggle up next to us and grin like it was the happiest experience they'd had in some time. It was charming, poignant and memorable. Several wanted me to learn one Vietnamese phrase: "You will be in my heart forever". What started out as a simple language exchange turned into something more rich than I could have imagined."

English language skills are required for medical university students.  Several of our team members have enjoyed the opportunity to teach English classes throughout the week.  Jennifer Rinaldi, Healing the Children board member and Team Administrator, with a terrific class.

Ann Glusker, Medical Librarian with Seattle Group Health, provides workshops to Can Tho Medical faculty and students on Medical research, technology, and medical library related topics.  "I am working with the staff of the medical library. The medical library at Can Tho Univ has existed for about three years, and has 8 staff 

members.  Several of them are new librarians, and very excited to be at the library.  In addition to the library staff, my talks were attended by people from the IT department and from basic sciences, as well as several medical students."