Dr. Youykham Chanthavilay, the first Lao-American eye doctor from the Washington metropolitan area talks to VOA about his life and education. The recent medical graduate first joined the U.S. Army after high school and was dispatched to Somalia in the early period of that country’s civil war in 1993.
His four years with the Army earned him a scholarship for his medical studies. In return he has to work three years for the army. He is now an captain scheduled to be deployed to Germany in late September. Youykham is the third doctor in his family. One of his four sisters is a dentist and is married to an American dentist.
For more details about the life of this Lao-American military doctor, click on our audio file above.