AROUND THE WORLD STRITCH SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Mike My Lehoang (MD ’74/’75), recipient of the 2014 Stritch Medal, walks alongside his daughter Jennifer Lehoang (MD ’14).
To serve and to heal M
ike My Lehoang (MD ’74/’75) grew up in Saigon during the Vietnam War. During high school, he spent time caring for homeless people
displaced by battles and for injured children, and his firsthand experience of the atrocities of war, along with his Catholic upbringing, shaped the rest of his life. “I remember my greatest satisfaction when I ap-
plied a bandage to a young boy’s leg that was hit by shrapnel,” Lehoang says. “It stopped the bleeding, and I actually made a difference in someone’s life.” Lehoang excelled academically in high school,
and was thus allowed by the Vietnamese govern- ment to attend college abroad. He arrived in the United States in 1968 under the impression that he was starting medical school. “I was told by the counselor that I would not make it to medical school because of my weak English and
that medical school was very competitive,” Lehoang says. “After that, I was more determined to go to medical school than ever.” He graduated from college in three and a half
years and was accepted to Stritch, where he trained in general surgery, intending to return to Vietnam to care for those wounded in the war. But during his residency, Vietnam fell to the communists. “Going back was not an option for me anymore,”
Lehoang says. “So I decided to choose orthopedics, which was my love from the very beginning.” During this same year, he met a new love as
well—his future wife, Sue, the daughter of a friend of Lehoang’s father. The two married in 1977 and have four children. In 1981, Lehoang opened a private practice in
Los Angeles that continued until he was unable to perform surgeries due to a back injury. He returned to Los Angeles County-University of Southern
22 LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO
“I remember my greatest satisfaction when I applied a bandage to a young boy’s leg that was hit by shrapnel. It stopped the bleeding, and I actually made a difference in someone’s life.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44