A Houston Team Travels to Vietnam to Help Train Gynecologic Oncology Fellows
Three of our gynecologic oncologists from McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston recently traveled to Vietnam to help train an International Society of Gynecologic Cancer fellows at Da Nang Cancer Hospital. The three physicians from the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences are Joseph A. Lucci III, MD, professor; Rosa Guerra, MD, assistant professor; and Lavanya Palavalli Parsons, MD, assistant professor. The trip was coordinated by Project TVD, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health care for the people of Vietnam.
Dr. Lucci first traveled to Vietnam with Project TVD in 2000 and has made numerous subsequent visits. “When we’re there, our primary goal is to teach medical and surgical management of women with gynecologic malignancies to the fellows and junior physicians, helping to provide our Vietnamese colleagues with the knowledge and skills they need to help their own patients using the latest advances in our specialty,” he says. “In a week’s time, we typically do 10- 12 major cases with the fellows, see patients in clinic, give lectures, and review the medical management of patients with gynecologic cancers at the hospital. We discuss the chemotherapy, radiation, palliative care, and other treatment options available for the patients with the physicians involved with the care of the patients.” Three fellows have graduated from the program so far, Drs. Quynh, Ngoc and Dung, and a fourth, Dr. Trinh, started in 2024. Dr. Lucci has participated in the education of all four fellows.
The most recent graduate, Dung Nguyen, MD, completed her two-year fellowship in October 2024. Like other fellows, she spent four months training in the U.S., rotating between the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida; the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill; and McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. Like all the Vietnamese fellows, she agreed to practice for two years at Da Nang Cancer Hospital, a free, government-sponsored public hospital, after completion of the program.
Dr. Lucci finds the Vietnamese physicians to be highly capable physicians and surgeons. “They’re so eager to learn that you can’t help but be motivated by them to teach,” he says. “As an individual physician, you can take care of only so many patients, but by training the next generation of physicians, we can extend our impact enormously. That’s why I practice academic medicine.”
Project TVD is named for Tung Van Dinh, MD, who was chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Da Nang General Hospital during the Vietnam War. After the war, he completed residency training in the U.S. and joined the faculty at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, where Lucci was a faculty member between 1995 and 2003.
“There were three of us on my first trip in 2000, and the program continued to grow,” says Dr. Lucci, who fell out of the collaboration when he left UTMB and joined the faculty at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He became involved again when he returned to Texas in 2014 to join the faculty of McGovern Medical School.
Dr. Lucci was joined by Dr. Palavalli Parsons in 2023 and in 2024, a first-generation American whose parents immigrated from India. “I’ve always been interested in practicing medicine in another country and becoming immersed in the culture,” she says. “Having a teaching relationship with another Asian country has been fascinating. The people are so welcoming. I truly enjoyed working with the international gynecologic oncology fellows and lending my expertise. When you’re well along in your medical career, it’s easy to forget why you chose medicine in the first place. Going to Vietnam reconnected me with my motivation, rebooting me and allowing me to be totally present. I hope to go again.”
Dr. Guerra had made mission trips to Nicaragua and Guatemala early in her career as an attending physician. “As an academic physician who helps train residents here in Houston, I thought it would be a great experience to provide Vietnamese trainees with skills they could use to help patients in years to come,” she says. “The fellows are so appreciative of the training they receive.”
Would she go back? “Absolutely!” she says. “It’s very special to have the opportunity to work with them one on one and see how much they’ve accomplished. We learn as much from their creativity in working with the resources they have available as they learn from us.”