On November 3rd & 5th, 14 students of the Master program in Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) successful completed the thesis defense at the HCMC University of Medicine and Pharmacy (UMP). MCNV Country Director Pham Dung attended the event.
The SALT Master program is conducted as part of the project “Development of Speech and Language Therapy Education in Vietnam” under the DISTINCT project by VietHealth, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). MCNV is in charge of project implementation and also contributes part of the funding. The Trinh Foundation Australia (TFA) participates in this project as a technical consulting partner.
The completion of the Master thesis defense is a significant milestone in developing SALT, achieved amidst the most complicated period of COVID-19 outbreak in HCMC. Despite the inevitable challenge brought about by the pandemic, MCNV and partners managed to come up with a set of adaptation solutions to minimize the negative impacts.
Since COVID-19 hits Vietnam, most of the training activities had been shifted from direct to virtual training method. The curriculum was revised, adapted while new teaching materials were developed. A professional Zoom account was maintained to facilitate online learning. Along with that, memberships of Simucase, a credible clinical simulation platform were purchased for all students and supervisors, enabling the users to assess, diagnose, make recommendations, and provide intervention for virtual patients.
For their thesis research, students received continuous support from experienced supervisors of HCMC UMP and universities in Australia.
(These researches will soon be published on Website: http://speechtherapyvn.net and Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ngonngutrilieu.mcnv/)
This achievement would have never been accomplished without MCNV’s precious partners and friends, TFA, HCMC UMP, SALT specialists, lecturers and mentors. Based on this initial success, we look forward to our continual fruitful cooperation, to further contribute to the development of SALT and Rehabilitation in Vietnam in general./.
