The Medical Aid Committee for Vietnam was founded in 1965. Its initial aim was to send, 'medical aid to the areas where the bombs were falling, and the casualties highest - the National Liberation Front areas of South Vietnam'. It extended its terms of reference in 1966 to include, 'requests for medical aid from the Red Cross Society of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in Hanoi'. It continued to work in South East Asia after 1979 as Medical and Scientific Aid for Vietnam, Laos and Kampuchea, concerning itself with providing, 'scientific aid in relation to medical research' (MS. Eng. c. 5690/6).

In 1965 Hodgkin was asked to become President by Joan McMichael, Honorary Secretary of the Medical Aid Committee. She declined, however, on the grounds that she was spending time in Ghana, where Thomas Hodgkin was setting up an institute of African studies, and that the President ought to be in England to support McMichael. Instead Hodgkin agreed to serve as Vice-President until 1971, when she became President.