Dr. Tôn Thất Tùng: Google honors Vietnamese surgeon on his 110th birthday

Happy Birthday Dr. Tôn Thất Tùng!

Google doodle on May 10, 2022, to celebrate the 110th birthday of Dr. Tôn Thất Tùng, the Vietnamese surgeon. He is famous in the field of liver research. Dr. Tôn Thất Tùng is also known as the author of the "dry liver cutting method" also known as the "Ton That Tung method".

Dr. Tôn Thất Tùng was born on this day Thanh Hoa and grew up in Hué, Vietnam in 1912—a time when the French colonial government forbade Vietnamese people from pursuing advanced medical education.

Coming from a noble family of the Nguyen Dynasty (his father's father was Ton That Nien, Governor of Thanh Hoa ), but he did not pursue a career as a mandarin, so in 1931, he moved to Hanoi to study at a Chinese school. Protected School (ie Buoi School - Chu Van An School today). In 1935, he studied at the Indochina School of Medicine and Pharmacy.

As an adult, Dr. Tôn Thất Tùng protested this harsh policy and ignited an equal education movement. His efforts eventually forced the colonial government to allow Vietnamese students to take residency admissions exams in 1938.

In his four years of postgraduate school, Dr. Tôn Thất Tùng dissected more than 200 livers and became the first to conduct such meticulous research on the organ. His deep knowledge of liver anatomy helped him realize the traditional approach to liver surgery—a method that took three to six hours to complete—was unnecessarily risky and cumbersome.

Dr. Tôn Thất Tùng founded a new surgery method that minimized bleeding by tightening the hepatic veins before the operation, shortening the operation down to only four to eight minutes. His groundbreaking technique, commonly known as the “Tôn Thất Tùng Method,” is renowned by surgeons globally for its ability to reduce blood loss and save countless lives.

Some of Dr. Tôn Thất Tùng’s honors and awards:

Hero of Labor

Ho Chi Minh Medal (1992)

First Class Labor Medal

First Class Soldier Medal

Order of the Resistance, Third Class

Ho Chi Minh Prize Phase I (1996)

Since 2000, the State of Vietnam has set up an award in Medicine named after him: the Ton That Tung Award.

Thank you! Dr. Ton That Tung, for pushing the boundaries of surgery to change the medical field forever.

Source: Wikipedia, Google doodles

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