Coco Tang has traveled the world as a Nationally Registered Paramedic and a DOD-trained Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) instructor, and she is currently on contract working the night shift in New York City treating COVID-19 patients. She joins Jason and Emily for episode 011 to talk about the similarities and differences in her medical mission work from Africa to Afghanistan to here at home. Their conversation covers her ground truth at the epicenter of the current pandemic, her unique perspective as a Chinese American in the time of COVID, tales from her trips abroad, and what drives her to serve and help others in some of the most challenging spots around the globe.

Coco was born in Fushun, China - not far from the North Korean border - and moved to the US when she was 12. She is a naturalized US citizen who speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese and has a working proficiency of Arabic, German, Russian, and Japanese. In 2013, she moved to Jordan as a Fulbright Scholar to conduct academic research on ISIS and Syrian refugees. During that time, she began volunteering medically at the refugee camps. Since then, she has worked all around the world including: community outreach initiatives in Sierra Leone during the height of the Ebola crisis in 2014; the Nepal earthquake response in 2015; and Syrian refugee camps in Greece and Iraq. Last year, she led humanitarian and medical assessment trips to the remote mountainous regions of northern Ethiopia and to the Democratic Republic of Congo due to another Ebola outbreak in South Kivu. She most recently returned from a medical deployment in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Links:

011 - Coco Tang, Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC) Instructor & Paramedic in NYC