Scope and Contents

Less than one-half linear foot of photographs, slides, administrative documents, correspondence, notes, manuscript materials, and postcards document Joan K. Boyd's service as a USAID nurse advisor with the Military Provincial Hospital Assistance Program (MILPHAP) in Pleiku, Republic of Vietnam, January 1967-July 1968. All materials in the collection date from the war era and are in good condition. She contributed an Oral History Projet interview with VNCA in 2017.

Biographical / Historical

Joan K. Boyd served in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, 1960-1962, serving as a hospital Registered Nurse (RN) at Fort Ord, California. Returning to civilian life, she was an RN at Moffitt Hospital (1962-1963) and then at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsual (CHOMP, 1963-1966).

Ready for a change and some travel, in 1966 Boyd joined the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in order to have the opportunity to offer her nursing services to the peoples of Vietnam. She spent October-December 1966 at USAID orientation and language studies before going to Vietnam in January 1967. Boyd spent the next eighteen months (January 1967-July 1968) as a USAID Nurse Advisor with the Military Provincial Hospital Assistance Program (MILPHAP) team at Pleiku Provincial Hospital, where she provided direct nursing care to Vietnamese and Montagnard patients on the surgery ward, secured supplies for the U.S. Army Hospital Supply, obtained consultations for US Army doctors, and provided tertiary care for children with serious burns and missing limbs.

Upon the completion of her time with USAID, Boyd returned to the United States and received her MPH at the Department of Maternal and Child Health at the University of California at San Francisco. She then became an Assistant Professor at UCSF (1972-1976),and then was a pediatric nurse practitioner, and an administrator of various primary health facilities.

Ms. Boyd shares more about her experiences in her oral history interview: OH0958.