Professor of neurology Le Duc Hinh is a member of many international associations, including the French Society of Neurology and the American Academy of Neurology and can speak three foreign languages fluently.

You are one of the country’s leading neurology professors. Did you choose your speciality or did it choose you?

I wanted to study neurology and psychology since I was a high-school student, nearly 60 years ago. The nervous system plays an important role in forming and developing humans, ruling over people’s thinking, language and behaviour. There are many diseases relating to the nervous system.

After five years studying at Ha Noi Medical University, I chose neurology and psychiatry as my specialities. I am really thankful to my first teacher Dr Nguyen Quoc Anh, who specialised in neuro-psychiatry and founded Viet Nam’s Neuro-psychiatry in 1956.

Anh was an expert in paediatric neurology. I am very lucky that I got the opportunity to choose my career and follow it for the rest of my life.

Is the diagnosis and treatment of nervous system diseases different than that of other diseases?

Yes, I am sure.

The nervous system includes the body, the brain and soul. Treatment requires more time to understand the patients. They may be artists, workers, senior officials or children. They may have the same nervous disease but the roots of the mental disorder may be different.

It is important to find the most suitable way to approach and communicate with each patient. The way you speak with a three-year-old child will be different than how you speak to a 10 year old. I call it the “Art of getting in touch with patients”.

If the patients are sad or frightened, we spend about 15 minutes for the first check-up, but we will have many other meetings to find the most suitable method of treatment.

And for many patients, even after I finish my check up and get the results, I must spend many weeks studying the case before I can devise a method of treatment .

For example, for patients who also suffer from diabetes, I must consult a diabetes specialist before I can treat them.

You successfully defended your doctoral thesis in 1989 on Japanese encephalitis in children. Why did you choose this topic?

Japanese encephalitis is a pandemic disease prevalent in Southeast Asia. Scientists discovered the virus in 1954. Two years later, Vietnamese scientists began studying it.

During that time, the disease was very dangerous. The disease always appears from May to August. Children ran a high fever for several days and then died. No reason was found, but many people blamed for birds.

It was discovered that the disease is caused by the mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis virus. Domestic pigs and cattle are reservoirs of the virus before it is transmitted to human by mosquitoes.

In the years before a vaccine was found, 30 per cent of paediatric patients died and the remaining 70 per cent survived with mental retardation.

I focused on finding a way to determine the symptoms of the disease to give an earlier diagnosis and reduce the mortality rate. I spent 15 years on this. My discoveries in diagnosis and treatment were applied by many colleagues.

Today, we have a vaccine and doctors can diagnose the disease with a blood test. They may not need my diagnostic experience anymore, but I still help doctors study the effects of the Japanese encephalitis virus.

Can you say something about the country’s neurology?

I am very lucky to have witnessed the development of the country’s neurology. Although the specialty was founded in 1962, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.

We lack doctors specialising in neurology. We must train a group of doctors in the speciality who have enough knowledge and skill to meet the demand.

How do we get doctors specialising in neurology in every city and province nationwide? At present, most doctors are concentrated in big cities like Ha Noi and HCM City.

Besides, knowledge is not enough. They must be willing to go to communes if they are needed.

I am very happy whenever I am invited to work in localities. I have retired, but I still receive invitations from universities to lecture, mark exam papers and supervise PhD students.

Why don’t you open a private clinic like many others?

I have never thought about opening a private clinic and I don’t have the funds to do it. Opening my own clinic is not as important as what I can do for patients.

Some friends asked me to undersign their clinics but I refused. I do not want to do business.

If a doctor has no patients, he is not a doctor. I am treating patients at Bach Mai Hospital where I used to be head of the Neurology Department, a clinic at the Ha Noi Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development and a private clinic in Ha Noi to balance my family’s income and expenses. But the most important thing is that I am still close to patients – that means I can learn more and help more patients.

I learned that my father’s friend, Professor Dang Van Chung, who was one of the most distinguished physicians in Viet Nam never opened up his own medical practice.

Right now, our conception of a clinic isn’t right. Clinics need certain conditions, doctors and nurses of a certain quality. Few clinics in Ha Noi and HCM City have met these demands. I could open clinic at my house but I shall not.

I am not rich but I can live by my job.

Do you think being a doctor helps make you rich?

This is a sensitive question.

I used to say to my colleagues and students that there are many ways to become rich. If doctors turn their profession into a tool to earn money, it is not with the right spirit. I understand that.

I have worked with many famous foreign doctors for many years, most of them are not rich.

As for me, studies are my asset. I am rich because my assets are books, which are used by many doctors nationwide.

VietNamNet/VNS