Rehabilitation has been developed in Vietnam for more than 40 years; however, Occupational Therapy (OT) is still a new field. With the support from USAID, MCNV has been implementing a 5 year project in OT training development in Vietnam.
The projects’ goal is to create the foundation and necessary conditions to develop the training system of professional OT in Vietnam, including the provision of OT trainers, competency-based training curriculum and OT-related policies. Specific objectives of the project are:
1) To develop a group of capable OT trainers in Hai Duong Medical Technical University (HMTU) and University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ho Chi Minh City (UMP HCMC);
2) To develop OT curriculum of bachelor level;
3) To pilot an OT Bachelor training course in HMTU and UMP HCMC; and 4) To set up two ADL labs for practicing during training procedure.
In early 2017, the first Bachelor course in OT was launched successfully at the Ho Chi Minh University of Medicine and Pharmacy. In November 2017, lecturers from the Manipal University came and delivered lectures at HCM University of Medicine and Pharmacy and on December 5, 2017, a similar course was organised at the Hai Duong Medical Technical University. These were significant milestones for the OT development in Vietnam.