“A career in medicine is a privilege”

A childhood dream

From a young age, Tien followed his father, Professor, Dr. Huynh Van Minh (currently President of the Vietnamese Hypertension Association, Vietnam Society of Cardiology), to the hospital. Witnessing patients being cared for and comforted, along with the devotion of physicians, planted in young Tien a love for medicine and a pure dream: “One day, I will become a doctor to help others.”

As he grew up, Tien was determined to enter Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Hue University, and successfully entered as top candidate in the Biology category. “That was an unforgettable moment. I felt proud that part of my dream had come true, but I also understood that the road ahead would be long and full of challenges. Still, it was a choice I trusted, because medicine gives me the opportunity to heal, save lives, and create real value for the community,” Professor Tien recalled.

During his early days in medical school, the young student Hoang Anh Tien experienced a mix of excitement and reflection. Excitement from gaining access to new knowledge and learning from distinguished teachers in the field; reflection from realizing the immense responsibility of the medical profession, which demands relentless effort, sacrifice, and perseverance. The more he studied, the more he fell in love with medicine, and the more he understood why medicine is often described as a difficult yet deeply humane journey.

A career in medicine is a privilege

After more than 20 years of dedication, Professor Hoang Anh Tien understands medicine as a profession full of challenges due to emergency pressures and responsibility for patients’ lives. He firmly believes that a doctor must first see patients as human beings who are suffering and anxious, not merely as “clinical cases.”

Professor Tien shared: “Medicine is a privilege to me. It gives me the opportunity to save others, to witness patients’ recovery, and serves as motivation for lifelong learning. Every case is a lesson, every patient is a story. It is the moments when patients improve, the smiles after treatment, and sincere words of gratitude that nurture my pride and commitment to this profession.”

He has had countless experiences in his profession, but there is one memory that Professor Hoang Anh Tien will never forget. It was a case of an extremely severe myocardial infarction that had been sent home by a lower-level hospital because the prognosis was considered hopeless. When the patient arrived, Professor Tien was in the middle of a lecture for students but was forced to stop and go directly to the catheterization laboratory. It was a moment when everyone - from the emergency and intensive care teams to the interventional team - put forth 100% of their effort, driven by the spirit of “never giving up while there is still hope.” Fortunately, the patient survived.

For the patients

Professor Hoang Anh Tien defended his doctoral dissertation in 2011 at the age of 32, with the topic: “The role of plasma NT-proBNP and T-wave alternans in prognostic assessment of heart failure patients.” At that time, heart failure was a major burden in Vietnam, yet prognostic markers were still limited. NT-proBNP is a powerful biochemical marker for heart failure, while T-wave alternans has great predictive value for dangerous arrhythmias - two key factors determining mortality in heart failure patients.

The desire to develop more accurate risk assessment methods - enabling physicians to predict which patients are likely to deteriorate and which require closer monitoring and more aggressive intervention - has been the driving force behind Professor Hoang Anh Tien’s early pursuit of an integrated research approach combining molecular biology, electrophysiology, and clinical practice. To this day, this remains a field he continues to pursue, with the goal of contributing to improved quality of heart failure treatment in Vietnam.

 Professor Hoang Anh Tien has led and participated in 15 research projects at the ministerial, provincial, and Hue University levels, authored 180 scientific publications, and contributed to 18 books. Among these, one of the research clusters to which he is most devoted is “Development of a respiratory monitoring device (SASD-07) for the detection of sleep apnea syndrome,” which has received multiple honors, including the Excellence Award at the Young Science and Technology Conference of Vietnamese Medical Universities, First Prize at the Thua Thien Hue Provincial Technical Innovation Contest, and the Creative Labor Certificate from the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor. His second major research focus is the optimization of cardiac resynchronization therapy implantation techniques for patients with end-stage heart failure, as well as the optimization of coronary artery stenting using the two-stent DK-Crush technique.

 Speaking about his passion for scientific research, Professor Tien shared enthusiastically: “Every question that arises from cardiovascular practice drives me to seek answers. When facing patients with heart failure, hypertension, or arrhythmias, I always ask myself, ‘Can I do better?’ To me, research is not just a job - it is a way to create real value for patients and for the next generation of students I am training.”