Interview with Viangkaeo Lee: COVID Vaccine Accessibility in Hmong Community

Viangkaeo is a second-year medical student at UCSF. In this interview, Viangkaeo shares her experience being a 1.5 generation Hmong American, starting a platform on Instagram to mentor aspiring physicians during the COVID-19 pandemic, and discrimination that she have seen in her Hmong community.

The full transcript is available here.

Keywords: Hmong, Hmong American, medical school, mentorship, COVID vaccination

Index

00:00:00 Growing up as a Hmong refugee

00:05:15 Meeting Hmong American peers

00:13:48 Reason for wanting to become a doctor

00:19:46 Building bridge to western medicine as a Hmong American

00:24:50 Meeting Hmong classmate in medical school

00:28:09 Another plan to be an educator

00:33:05 Seeing patients during the COVID pandemic

00:41:25 Email address to get COVID vaccination

00:46:48 COVID takeaway

00:49:18 Starting a platform for community and mentorship

00:57:04 Closing remark