How One Marine Corps Veteran Will Continue his GS Story as a Fulbright Recipient

As a United States Marine Corps veteran, Kiet Nguyen ‘26PBPM is no stranger to making high-stakes decisions with limited resources and time. His commitment to service, discipline, and honor, led him to medicine and the Postbac Premed program. “Medicine felt like the most honest continuation of that service,”  Nguyen reflects, “and the role where everything the Marines gave me could now be directed toward the healing mission.” 

Nguyen’s healing mission put him on the path to GS where he served as a Veteran Peer Mentor in the Office of Student Life. There, he encouraged his peers to explore careers in the medical field. He also served as an Emergency Department research intern at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Now, finishing his time in the Postbac Premed program, Nguyen is ready to expand his community outreach and research as a Fulbright recipient.

This fall, Nguyen will begin his Fulbright in Vietnam working with the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City, anchored at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and collaborating with their Dengue Research Group. The group’s focus is on lower-resource hospitals where dengue caseloads are rising. “Clinicians there work under tight constraints and often have to decide quickly whether to treat a patient locally or send them to a tertiary center—decisions that matter enormously,” he said. 

Nguyen wants to use his research to understand how best to improve these conditions and practically implement technology that can have a substantial impact. “My research draws on implementation science, epidemiology, ethnography, and behavioral and organizational psychology to understand what it actually takes to get these tools working for the clinicians and patients who need them,” he said.

The Fulbright experience will be the perfect next step for Nguyen’s goal of becoming a clinical physician working at the intersection of clinical care and global public health. This  time in Vietnam will allow him to develop the most crucial skill:connecting with patients. “Learning to listen carefully and empathize with people whose lived experiences differ from my own is, I think, a core skill of any clinician.” He recognizes that the work of being a physician is not always linear, and that alongside the practical experience, his goal is to build the “ trust and understanding needed to deliver a level of care that respects the uniqueness of each person being served.” 

As Nguyen finishes up his chapter at GS and looks ahead to his Fulbright journey , he expresses gratitude for the community he’s found here and for everything that makes a GS story so meaningful. “GS is built for people who take a different path—full careers, families, lives that don't fit a traditional college timeline. That mission is personal to me.”

That mission is rooted in his own family’s story, especially his mother’s journey.  “My mother sold sugarcane juice on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, just a few kilometers from where I'll be based for the Fulbright. She came to the U.S. as a refugee, raised four children, worked multiple jobs, and finished college later in life. She now owns a catering business.”

Nguyen will carry her story—and the stories of all those he met at GS—with him during his time in Vietnam.