“Messiah took a chance on me and gave me the break that I needed,” said Dr. Minh Nguyen ’80, a cardiologist.
While his patients know him as Dr. Ming (“the proper way to say my first name, which is also the Vietnamese way”), he was once a refugee with no academic transcripts.
Leaving his home in Vietnam at the end of the war in 1975, he landed in Los Angeles, so the plane could refuel. Harrisburg was his destination, but no one wanted to go to Pennsylvania because “it was rumored to be ‘colder than ice.’”
He arrived at Fort Indiantown Gap military base and attended English classes. He volunteered to do menial jobs at the camp clinic before he was discharged and then worked at Holy Spirit Hospital in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.
After work, he’d attend more English classes from the Sisters of Christian Charities. He applied to 20 colleges, but—without transcripts—they all turned him down. Except Messiah.
In hopes of becoming a doctor, he studied biology. “It was a big mistake,” he said, “because coming from Vietnam and not knowing English, biology required I study a lot of English and long Latin terms.”
He changed his major to chemistry. “There’s an international language in chemistry. You put H2O together and get water. It doesn’t matter where you’re from,” he said.
After graduating, he attended Temple University. He then accepted a residency at St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, followed by a cardiology fellowship at Oschner Clinic in New Orleans.
Even though Pennsylvania may be “colder than ice,” he returned to the state for a woman who warmed his heart. Today, he and his wife, Lisa, live in Bethlehem with daughters, Erin and Jenna, while a third daughter, Kaitlin, attends Lewis Katz Temple School of Medicine.
“Coming from a poor background in Vietnam with no running water and refrigerator, the transition to new life, new language and customs was difficult in the beginning,” he said. “I am eternally grateful for the many kind Americans I met on the way, especially those at Messiah College, who helped me end up where I am today.”
He now works at Coordinated Health, a satellite of Lehigh Valley Health Network. His daughter, Erin, recently toured Messiah in her college search. He said, “I would be very pleased and proud if she would go to Messiah, where I began.”
— Sarah Stubbe ’21 and Jake Miaczynski ’20