{"id":86772,"date":"2016-07-11T10:59:03","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T14:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?p=86772"},"modified":"2020-09-17T10:27:17","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T14:27:17","slug":"seeing-the-end-and-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2016\/seeing-the-end-and-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Seeing the End and the Beginning’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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July 11, 2016<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\"Lindsay
Lindsay White (second from right) with Bao Le Ngoc (middle) and colleagues at a celebration for Pathfinder International.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s all in the timing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever you need me to do, I will do,\u201d MPH student Lindsay White said when she arrived at the Vietnam offices of Pathfinder International<\/a>. That turned out to be plenty, as White found herself helping a brand new consulting firm take over for a major international NGO.<\/p>\n

Supported by the Santander Universities Scholarship Program<\/a>, White expected her practicum to be an evaluation of mobile Continuing Medical Education (mCME) among HIV clinicians in the country, part of a project<\/a> using daily text messages to encourage Vietnamese healthcare workers to study.<\/p>\n

Pathfinder International, a Watertown, Massachusetts-based NGO promoting sexual and reproductive health,\u00a0 began the project last year with Boston University School of Public Health researchers<\/a>, Hanoi School of Public Health, Hanoi Medical University, Th\u00e1i Nguy\u00ean Provincial Department of Public Health, and the Vietnamese Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n

But when White arrived at Pathfinder\u2019s office in Hanoi, the organization was in the process of leaving Vietnam, having achieved its goals in the country over the last two decades.<\/p>\n

White is still working on the mobile learning evaluation, but most of her role in Hanoi has turned out to be helping with the transition, as Pathfinder\u2019s work is taken over by a newly launched organization: Consulting and Researching on Community Development (CRCD).<\/p>\n

\"Lindsay
Lindsay White (right) gets a motorbike ride from a colleague on the way to Hanoi Medical University.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CRCD is led by Bao Le Ngoc, the former head of Pathfinder International Vietnam, and much of the staff are making the shift with him from the international NGO to the new in-country public health consultancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are now having to completely reset their framework,\u201d says White.\u00a0\u201cPathfinder has been a powerhouse in Vietnam for 22 years. They have had the funding and name recognition to build strong relationships with stakeholders and have had access to the tools they needed to implement successful programs and interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n

With CRCD also expanding beyond the scope of sexual and reproductive health, White says, \u201cthey are entering into uncharted waters, but are excited to stand on their own and prove not only how capable CRCD is, but how capable Vietnam is.\u201d<\/p>\n

This state of flux has also turned out to be quite the learning opportunity for White: \u201cI think it\u2019s closer to what I will actually be experiencing at a real job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her work in the transition has mainly focused on building up CRCD\u2019s database of health statistics for the country and successful frameworks used in the past, so the consultancy will have the informational resources it needs to get to work. \u201cFor example, today I just built a situational analysis on aging in the country,\u201d White says. She has also gathered statistics on sexual and reproductive health in the country, and is helping create an international internship program at CRCD, \u201ceverything from best practices for having an intern, and programming for them, all the way to accommodation resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this practicum, White says she is getting more than the usual hands-on experience with a project. Instead, her work in the mobile learning evaluation\u2014continued with CRCD\u2014goes alongside getting into the machinery of international public health work, from an organization\u2019s launch to the time when it passes the torch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a weird kind of transition,\u201d White says, \u201cbut it\u2019s been rewarding to see the end and the beginning at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Michelle Samuels<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Lindsay White is taking over the SPH Instagram account from Hanoi, Vietnam, from July 11 through 15. Follow along at Instagram.com\/BUSPH\/<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Student Lindsay White helps launch public health consultancy in Vietnam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10989,"featured_media":86781,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[1711,1899,1472,1848],"bu-publication":[3516],"sphnews-article-category":[3519,3523,3528,3531,3532],"sphnews-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"profile_tax":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/86772"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10989"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86772"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/86772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174140,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/86772\/revisions\/174140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86772"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=86772"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-article-category?post=86772"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-topic?post=86772"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=86772"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=86772"},{"taxonomy":"profile_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_tax?post=86772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}