BY KIRSTEN HOLGUIN
UCLA Today
All her life, UCLA medical student Nghi Lu has
had to face life-shattering adversities — the Vietnam
war, the shooting death of her father and the loss of her hearing
following a high fever while she, her mother and brother waited
in refugee camps to be rescued by sponsors in Utah.
So this latest challenge that faces her in
her third year of medical school will be endured as well. But
this time, Lu knows that help is nearby, and that she is not
alone.
After completing her second year of medical
school with the help of UCLA’s Office for Students with
Disabilities (OSD), Lu, who can lip-read, faces the prospect
of third-year clinical and surgical rotations. For Lu, reading
lips during surgery when everyone is wearing a mask and trying
to follow what’s going on during rounds with attending
physicians would be nearly impossible.
So she is planning to take off a year from
medical school to learn sign language. Then, with the help of
OSD sign language interpreters, she will continue on her journey
to become a doctor.
“At UCLA, they’ve helped me level
the playing field such that the challenge of hearing no longer
stands in the way of the experience of learning,” said
Lu, 25, with confidence.
Lu was one of the 1,485 students who received
academic support services from OSD during the 2001-02 academic
year (the number of students being helped this year is not yet
available). Services provided to students with documented permanent
and temporary disabilities are paid for with funds from the
state and the Chancellor’s Office.
In fact, one of the main reasons why Lu chose
to attend UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine instead
of one of several other medical schools where she was accepted
was because of the extensive services offered by OSD, which
welcomed her.
“UCLA has been extremely receptive to
students with disabilities participating in different professional
schools or majors,” said Kathy Molini, OSD’s director.
The kinds of services Lu has received have
varied, depending on the classroom environment. In some classes,
her instructors wear a wireless microphone that amplifies sound
only she can hear. Lu, who has cochlear implants, can then follow
what is going on in the classroom.
But even with the implants, she still needs
assistance in other classes. At Lu’s side while attending
some lectures are two people who are trained as court reporters.
They provide real-time captioning as they type the lecturer’s
words onto a computer screen for Lu to read.
After her hearing loss was detected in daycare
when she was a toddler, her mother thought Lu would better fit
into the mainstream if she learned how to read lips instead
of how to sign. In fact, Lu fit in so well that she did not
realize she was deaf until the fourth grade, when another student
made fun of her.
But Lu has never let her disability hold her
back. She excelled in elementary and high school, ultimately
graduating from the University of Utah with a B.S. degree in
biology.
And she is doing well here as she completes
her second year of medical school.
“At UCLA, I don’t feel like I stand
alone,” Lu said.
