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Hiep "Bob" Nguyen, MD |
Urologist Hiep "Bob" Nguyen, MD, and his family fled their home country of Vietnam in 1975, when he was 9 years old, the day after the front of their house was bombed during the war. Luckily, his family made it out unscathed.
It just so happened that when deciding where to relocate, the immigration waiting line to the United States was the shortest, so they moved to a small town in Nebraska, where his father became the town's physician.
Nguyen had to quickly adapt to a new culture, so he remained open- minded in order to understand the people, customs and school system in his new American home. "I had to learn to be observant, and that makes me a good surgeon and scientist; all of my early experiences made me who I am today," he says. Before Nguyen perfected his English in school, he picked up a lot of it from watching Sesame Street. Nguyen's family members were the only minorities in the small Nebraska town and he was the only boy with black hair in his entire elementary school. "I became a pediatric urologist because when a child has an abnormality, she feels different from everyone else and is afraid of sticking out," he says. "I know how that feels and I want to help these kids fit in."
Nguyen was recruited by Alan Retik, MD, to become part of Children's Hospital Boston's Urology team in 2004. "I wanted to be in a teaching hospital so I could go beyond helping patients; I wanted to share with others what I have learned," he says. Currently, Nguyen teaches pediatric urology to students, residents and fellows and collaborates with colleagues in researching and developing novel methods of performing minimally invasive surgery. But his teaching doesn't stop at Children's—or in the United States.
Working with International Volunteers in Urology, Nguyen leads a yearly trip to countries where there are virtually no pediatric urologists to teach surgeons how to perform the most basic urology procedures. Each year, he brings a team of nurses, anesthesiologists and surgeons from all over the country to remote locations; this November, they'll head to Nepal.
At an early age, Nguyen's family had to learn to adapt to their new home, including making dinner without soy sauce and rice—staples of Vietnamese cuisine that they could only get by travelling more than 200 miles to Denver. Instances like this contributed to the way Nguyen approaches missions abroad. "You have to be able to look at what you have and learn how to adapt; that's what surgery is all about," he says. "We cannot always apply what we do in the States to cases we see in these countries. We provide care of the highest standards, but that are most appropriate for them."
Nguyen loves to expand his own knowledge and is constantly trying new things. His many hobbies include tennis, skiing, golf, figure skating, ballet, painting, pottery, photography and Tae Kwan Do. And because he can't get enough of working with kids at Children's, he's also an active participant in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program and other volunteer organizations for children. "My colleagues always joke that I have every minute of every day filled so I must never have a chance to sleep," he laughs. "But you can never be afraid to try new things and you must make every minute of the day count."
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