First Day

I finally started administering the healthcare surveys today, and am so happy to get things going in terms of collecting data and information. I went to the Vietnamese Health Clinic and was able to get all the patients I talked to agree to do the survey. Most of them were pretty open to doing the questionnaire. I made sure to emphasize that their answers were totally anonymous, and that the research would eventually help the Vietnamese community in terms of obtaining healthcare. I had one lady who didn't really want to do it; she said everyone's answers were probably the same anyway, and that it wouldn't make a difference. I didn't really press her to do it after she declined, but one of the other patients there who had done the survey started talking to her, and telling her how important it was etc. etc. After that, she wanted to take a look at the survey and later agreed to do it. (yay!)

I think it's a good thing to let the participants know, and maybe emphasize, that I'm not doing this research just to do it, or whatever, but that I really, personally want to find out what improvements, or things that are needed to help the Vietnamese community. Many of the patients today answered "poor" in terms of their capabilities to read and understand English. They are really only able to get healthcare because of Catholic Charities. They call the Vietnamese hotline, tell the person that they are sick and need to see the doctor, and the appointment and everything is made for them. If they can't drive, or don't have transportation, a van is sent to pick them up. I can't imagine what it's like to not be able to read, write, or understand English; it's just very hard to navigate many things. Patients also have medical/insurance bills to pay, need to know how to take their medications, etc. I can just empathize with what they have to go through.

In terms of the actual survey, I think I have to throw out a couple questions. I have one question that asks how long the patients wait to see a doctor when they are sick, and almost all of them replied with, well it depends on when I can get an appointment. The purpose of that question was to see how long they waited to contact a doctor, but it only caused more confusion. Anyway, the survey also took much longer than the 10 minutes I had expected, but this was probably because most of the patients were elderly patients, and needed help circling answers and/or reading because they didn't bring their glasses. Going back to the clinic tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get more surveys done!