PANO - “Dr. Luong’s” surgical technique has been well-known and drawn much attention from doctors across countries and many of them have come to learn the technique.

A/Prof. Tran Ngoc Luong, Director of the Vietnam Central Hospital of Endocrinology

Born in 1961 in Nam Dinh province, A/Prof., Dr. Tran Ngoc Luong, Director of the Vietnam Central Hospital of Endocrinology, is one of the outstanding doctors of the health sector of Vietnam. He was honoured with the Vietnamese Talent Awards 2014 for his advanced technique in thyroid gland surgery, which is now called “Dr. Luong’s” technique.

Despite hardships and difficulties, since the early days when he and colleagues first established the Department of Endocrinology, he has always nurtured a dream to research and improve medical techniques until he could master them. As a result, combining thyroid traditional surgery and laparoscopy surgery, in 2003, he started developing his thyroid endoscopic surgical technique.

From scratch, without any training in countries of advanced medicine, he took advantage of all possible conditions including materials usable for endoscopic operations and videotaped every operation to learn from experience.

After more than 10 years of development, his technique has been well-known to local and international medical society as it is simpler, faster, safer, more effective and much cheaper than techniques in other countries.

A/Prof. Tran Ngoc Luong at a hospital in India

The director of the Vietnam Central Hospital of Endocrinology said “Dr. Luong's” technique leaves no big scars after operations as the biggest cut is only one centimeter long. Moreover, unlike other techniques that require sophisticated equipment, the operation here can be conducted with laparoscopic surgical instruments, which are equipped in almost every hospital from the district level upwards.

The cost of each operation is much lower, at USD 300 - 400, while in countries like Singapore, the cost is around USD 10,000. It takes only about 20 - 30 minutes to complete the operation while similar operation in Singapore and South Korea lasts two hours.

For those advantages, more than 220 doctors from different countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, India and Portugal have come to Vietnam to learn “Dr. Luong’s” technique to apply in their home countries.

For A/Prof., Dr. Tran Ngoc Luong and colleagues, success leaves no room for complacency. What they have always dreamt of is to better develop the technique so that it could better serve patients, especially those in their critical stages.

Source: VnExpress

Translated by Huu Duong