Prologue: A conservative general practioner perspective

To get an idea where my ideas are coming from, here's a little background on my life. I am a second generation Vietnamese-American, born in Orange, CA. My parents immigrated from Vietnam at the very end of the war, and the prevailing idea for those like my family and myself was to asssimilate. My parents told me to speak English, and "become an American." This didn't change much at the time, because I was put into ESL (English as a second language) simply because my parents were Vietnamese (whether or not I spoke any Vietnamese was of little consequence). My parents came to America with nothing. We were adopted by an American family who helped try to get us on our feet. In Vietnam, my dad was a veterinarian and my mom was a pharmacist. When they arrived in America it became clear that one of them would have to forego those pursuits and get a job to support the family. At that time, my family consisted of myself and my older sister. My dad went to work as a box boy at Safeway grocery store and took night classes to learn English. My mother went back to school to become a pharmacist while working as a laboratory technician. We moved into a roach infested apartment, where my parents saved every penny to move into a modest condominium in Midway City shortly thereafter. After my dad learned English, he earned his Master's in public health. He then began working for the County of Los Angeles in the Health Department where he stayed until retirement 2 years ago. My dad worked 2 jobs basically my entire life, my mom started her own pharmacy business, and they supported and encouraged 3 kids to go through school to become a dentist, physician, and pharmacist (who is now back in school to become a physician also), respectively. My parents were never on welfare or received government aid. My parents love this country and are proud to call themselves Americans.

My parents always said "education first," and tried to instill within us the principle of hard work and the "American dream." My dad would always say "if it's not tough, it's not worth doing," "if it were easy, everyone would do it," and if someone else can do it, why can't I?" They pushed all of us to do well in school and succeed. At around fourth grade, that was in question for me as I was doing poorly in school and was labeled as "at risk." My parents decided it was time to move us into a better educational district and we moved into our first house in Tustin, CA. That was the new start I needed, as I moved from the bottom of the school (where they wanted to hold me back multiple times) to performing in the top 10% of the nation where they wanted to skip me ahead 2 grades. We never had a lot at that point, but my parents believed in making investments in the right places- education, education, education.

After a while, my youthful ignorance got to me and I began to wonder if there's indeed more to life than getting good grades to get into a good college, and then get good job. Through a whole year of searching and researching multiple religions, I told myself the correct worldview would be consistent with the world around us, and would make sense on both an intellectual and emotional level. I became a Christian in my sophomore year of high school, and later went to BIOLA University (Bible Institute Of Los Angeles) for undergraduate studies. I was heavily involved in campus life, volunteering in the local community, and service in general. I really enjoyed "helping people," but wasn't ready to become a physician at that point because I wanted it to be my dream, and not just my parents'. To help me decide if I really wanted to put in the time, energy, and effort, I enrolled in Boston University School of Medicine's Master's in Medical Science degree program to improve my science scores and see if I really wanted to do this for a living. The program consisted of 1 year of first year medical school courses (where I had to outperform the current medical students to prove I belong there), and 1 year of research which I did at UCI (University of California, Irvine) in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma. I then went to medical school at Eastern Virginia, did two years of Family Medicine Residency at UCI, and then transferred to Pennsylvania State University for residency in Combined Internal Medicine and Pediatrics.