Updates

Stories from the field, the campus, and the community.

The Updates page is where MEMO shares mission-trip diaries, program milestones, community events, gala recaps, and stories from the students and supporters behind the work.

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Mission Diaries & Program Stories

Imported posts from MEMO's earlier site.

These stories preserve the voices behind MEMO's work and keep the archive easy to browse.

Clinic Days

Clinic Day 1 (7/24)

Oct 14, 2025 · Ian Bui · 1 min read

After an arduous bus ride to Tra Vinh and setting up M.E.M.O.'s mobile clinic the day before, Clinic Day 1 started bright and early at around 5:45 AM. Since the hotel was roughly 45 minutes away from the clinic site, we had to be on the bus by 6:15 AM. Prior to beginning clinic, it was known that the first day is the least busiest day out of the 3 clinic days since not as many patients come. This turned out to be a blessing since it allowed us to experiment with the structure of clinic and gather our bearings before it became more hectic in the following days. For the first day, I was assigned to Psychiatry with Dr. Lu Le, and our main job was to ensure that patients were being properly screened for possible mental health complications while in line waiting to enter clinic or while waiting for a general consultation from one of the physicians inside clinic. Those on Psychiatry had to make sure that patients who needed to see Psychiatry (based on their responses to the mental health intake form) did not trickle through the cracks and leave clinic before having a session with Dr. Lu Le. As such, our responsibilities consisted mostly of directing patients from the general consultation area to Psychiatry or other specialties.

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Clinic Days

Clinic Day 1 (7/24)

Oct 14, 2025 · Jolie Nguyen · 2 min read

I woke up around 4:55 AM for our very first clinic day, ate breakfast, and boarded the bus with all our 16G volunteers! We had a 40-minute drive to the clinic venue in Tra Vinh. Shoutout to Sheirica, who found my glasses on the bus that I had thought I lost! We received a pep talk from Dr. Bui and Dr. Le, who emphasized the importance of the "Four Agreements". I was stationed in Vitals to take patient's cholesterol levels and helped to translate, and it was inspiring to watch fellow 16Gers practice a different language throughout the day and communicate with patients as best they could! We got many laughs and patients called them "cute". For many patients, this was their first time receiving healthcare services, and some were initially frightened by needles and the testing they received before seeing a physician. One of the patients, an elderly female, began crying and hid her face in her sweater as her finger was being cleaned by a fellow MEMOber. Initially unsure of what to do but guided by putting myself in her shoes, I went over and held her other hand, comforting her in Vietnamese and talking about other subjects as a distraction. As the procedure concluded, she thanked all of us as we guided her towards the next station for a provider to interpret her results. A large part of providing care to such a community involves realizing the impact of small actions that comfort - kindness is truly a universal language!

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Clinic Days

Clinic Day 1 (7/24)

Oct 14, 2025 · Karen Nguyen · 3 min read

AHHH CLINIC DAY ONE IS FINALLY HERE!!! Last night, I found out that my first role was in the pediatric department, so I was super excited to meet all the younger patients. With all that built-in excitement, waking up at 5 AM wasn't too hard despite the fact that it was, well... 5 AM. Before I headed out, I recited all the viet questions I could ask the children like "Em ten la gi?" "Em may tuoi?" "Em thich an mon gi?" For breakfast, I had a small banana and some yogurt, which actually held me over pretty well until lunch. As we headed to the clinic site, I noticed the same excited energy radiating from everyone else. We were all eager, half-asleep maybe, but definitely ready to take on the long day!

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Clinic Days

Clinic Day 2 (7/25)

Oct 14, 2025 · Danny Huynh · 3 min read

At the earliest crack of dawn, I felt my phone vibrating. It was 5 am. It was time to get ready for the second clinic day. I opted to skip breakfast today to get some extra rest for the busy day ahead of us and also to get ready. Afterwards, I headed down to meet everybody else downstairs and board our bus at the 6am call time. Since our journey from the hotel to Cau Ngang would take around 45 minutes, I made the executive decision to take a power nap to really stock up on energy before the day really began.

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Clinic Days

Clinic Day 2 (7/25)

Oct 14, 2025 · Ryan Huynh · 5 min read

Risen from my slumber, I dressed myself and stumbled to the dining area, where an array of Vietnamese breakfast cuisines was prepared in a buffet style. Gutting for the rice and cha lua, I stuffed myself to last me the day, placed a tra sua a in my hands, and hopped to the bus. As I counted off my team members, ensuring their attendance, I observed as many continued collecting hours of sleep as I soon followed ensue, preparing to conquer another day.

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Clinic Days

Clinic Day 3 (7/26)

Oct 14, 2025 · Allyson Okazaki · 2 min read

Today was the third and final day of our 16G clinic. I volunteered in the optometry station where I helped in registration to record the patients' pupil reflexes and intraocular pressure using the iCare machine for the majority of the day. Before today, I had no clue about the steps that optometrists took to create prescriptions for glasses, so it was interesting to gain insight into this field.

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Clinic Days

Clinic Day 3 (7/26)

Oct 14, 2025 · Hallie Yong · 3 min read

Today was our third and final day of clinic, which I greeted with a sleepy start. After two rounds of snoozing, my last alarm blared at 5:45, forcing me out of bed. I stumbled out of bed on autopilot, quickly getting dressed and hurrying downstairs just in time for call-time. Luckily, it seemed like everyone else was on a similar delay for our last day so I was able to grab a quick bite before call-time.

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Clinic Days

Clinic Set Up (7/23)

Oct 14, 2025 · Dylan Sims · 1 min read

Today, we departed Saigon for Vinh Long province, where our mobile clinic will take place. We rose at 6:45 AM to store our luggage at the hotel and pack essentials for three days of clinic work. The four-hour drive to the province gave me time to feel excited about the clinic and wonder how many patients we'd assist this year. En route, Bus 1 turned back to the hotel to retrieve last-minute optometry supplies. Since the clinic marks the end of our trip, most of us were tired, and nearly everyone slept during the bus ride. We enjoyed banh mi for lunch on the bus.

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Clinic Days

Clinic Set Up (7/23)

Oct 14, 2025 · Mason Lew · 2 min read

The morning of the 23rd started at an early 6 am when I had to pack away all my belongings for storage or transportation to Tra Vinh. The morning was particularly rough to wake up knowing what lay ahead was a long bus ride and heavy lifting throughout the day. Nonetheless I trudged myself out of bed and began stuffing my suitcases. Due to space limitations on the bus, we were only allowed to carry one smaller bag with us to the next several days of clinic. I packed the essentials and my scrubs into a small carry-on luggage and jammed the rest of everything else I owned into my larger bags and headed down to the lobby. After grabbing a brief breakfast, I went to help load the buses, a preview of the lifting that would be required for the rest of the day. Once the buses were packed, I boarded and almost instantly went to sleep. I had small windows of lucidness but the majority of the ride was spent fast asleep. When we arrived at our destination, we were instructed to get out and leave our stuff to begin setting up for clinic. As we were arriving, the dental team also arrived and we were notified that the UMC team would also be joining us at a later time. I was amazed by the amount of people we had gathered for just set up. As it began, we lifted tables and chairs from outside and organized the clinic into a variety of different configurations according to a shared vision among organizations. I felt amazed by the scale of the clinic and was glad that differences in ideas could be settled and compromised on. Once we got a working layout we then moved to do a vitals refresher to prepare for clinic day. I gave a glucose demo and it honestly served as a refresher for me too. In all Training and set up lasted until early night when we then went back to our hotel. The new hotel was seemingly fancy and I was excited to be on the same floor as many of my friends. After I settled in, I went down and enjoyed a dinner cooked by the hotel and got ready to sleep for the day as tomorrow was clinic day 1.

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Training

Dental Training (6/28)

Oct 6, 2025 · Bao Phung · 2 min read

Today is dental training (alongside with medical training later into the day). The day started bright and early at 7:45 AM. This is honestly probably the earliest I've woken up in a while; definitely giving us a hint of what mission trip is going to be like. The training took place at Dr. Bui's dental clinic in Newport Beach. Thankfully, it was not too far so it didn't take that long to arrive at the clinic. When we got started, MEMObers were split into different groups. Each group will go through 5 stations: hygiene/sterilization, suctioning, surgical procedures and tools, medical emergencies, and proper ways to hand instruments to dentists. Each station is lead by different doctors. Looking back on the training, it was definitely a lot of information to remember (especially in the early morning too). For me, I would say that my past experiences as a dental assistant helped me get through the training, but regardless, I still look notes (on my phone) about certain procedures or information that I might not have known or want to remember. The training is very similar to OC Health Fair's dental training, so students who have been in dental during the health fair might feel that it was a refresher.

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Training

Dental Training (6/28)

Sep 15, 2025 · Joseph Si · 2 min read

Updated: Oct 5, 2025

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Traveling Days

Flight back to US (7/28)

Oct 15, 2025 · Jordan Nguyen · 1 min read

It's surreal to say this, but today we're flying back to the US. Bags packed, passports in hand, and hearts full, not just from the last few weeks, but from everything this journey has given us.

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Archived Events

Community events and fundraising moments preserved from the original site.

These older event pages are best handled as an archive rather than left as scattered standalone pages.

Archived Event

2023 Annual Fundraising Gala

No short summary was captured on the legacy page.

Sun, May 14 · Garden Grove

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Archived Event

OC One Community Health Fair 2022

No short summary was captured on the legacy page.

Coming October 2022 · Location is TBD

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Archived Event

OC One Community Health Fair

MEMO will be providing volunteers for the VPASC health fair on October 11th, 2020. Services such as free flu shots, glucose measurements, and colon cancer screenings will take place.

Sun, Oct 11 · Coastline Community College - Garden Gro

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Archived Event

U.C.I. T.V. Taping Fundraiser Beat Shazam Live Game Show

Beat Shazam Live Game Show

Sun, Jan 20 · CBS Television City - Genessee Gate

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Archived Event

U.C.I. Week 2 General Meeting

Pre-Health Student Workshop

Thu, Jan 17 · Social Science Tower (SST) 220B

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Archived Event

U.C.I. Week 3 Fundraiser

Spam Musubi

Wed, Jan 23 · Ring Road (In Front of C.C.C.)

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