Returning home to give back
Unsuccessful in its search for doctors in Taiwan, the hospital was forced to look abroad. Pathologist Swei H. Tsung is the first doctor that Chen was able to convince to return from the United States.
Two years ago St. Mary’s was having no luck finding a pathologist, and Chen kept his ears open for any news of one. Word came that Tsung, who had been ahead of Chen at Kaohsiung Medical University, was retiring in the US. Consequently, Chen invited him back to Taiwan to have a look at St. Mary’s. When Tsung agreed to work there, it was the first time the hospital was able to garner a commitment from a returning son.
Tsung had received comprehensive training as a pathologist in the US. After retiring at 60, he returned to Taiwan and worked for the Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center for a decade. But the taxing work left him always stressed and tired, so he retired for a second time and went back to America to enjoy the company of his grandchildren.
On a return visit to Taiwan, Tsung paid a visit to St. Mary’s and discovered that the hospital was larger than he had imagined, and that its equipment wasn’t too shabby. What’s more, it had an intensive care unit, a nursing home and a hospice—everything one might need during one’s last years. So he and his wife decided to return to Taiwan.
As for why he returned home once again, Tsung says, “We were able to gain perspective on what we really want out of the rest of our lives!”
“A lot of people in our generation,” he notes, “want to get back to their roots.” Tsung, whose sons and daughters-in-law are likewise physicians, says his children have established their own households and he doesn’t want to bother them. And he is only on a nodding acquaintance with the Americans he frequently encounters. Sometimes his life there felt lonely. But in Taiwan, people “speak the same language” and he can eat at night markets. It makes him feel content.
“After Swei H. Tsung joined, both the surgeons and internists were extremely grateful,” says Chen, “because he is quick with evaluations of biopsy slides, writes excellent reports and serves as a valuable educational resource.” Chen notes that the US has a lot of retired Taiwanese doctors. Taiwan, he argues, should try to “recycle those resources.”
Last August, at the invitation of the Taiwan Medical Association and the alumni association of Kaohsiung Medical University, Chen went to the US to raise money for a geriatrics building at St. Mary’s. Time and again, he made it clear that St. Mary’s needed people even more than it needed money.
“We could have raised the money in Taiwan,” Chen told an audience of retired doctors. “But what about those of you who left Taiwan after receiving your education there and have spent three or four decades in America. If you spend you retirement just playing golf or fishing, what a shame that would be! You ought to come back to Taiwan and make a contribution, even if it’s just for a couple of years.”
Chen’s remarks were like pebbles creating ripples in the minds of many of those doctors, and he successfully secured “donations” from two: pediatrician David C. Yang and emergency medical doctor Li Fangyun.
Love and compassion know no national boundaries. Brother Giovanni Petrin, from Italy, was Taiwan’s first male nurse. A winner of Taiwan’s Medical Contribution Award, he cared for the ill in Taiwan for over 50 years.