Today we’d like to introduce you to Linh Vuong, MD and Tinh Vuong, DO., L.Ac. They share their story with us below:
Dr. Tinh Vuong and Dr. Linh Vuong are sisters who share a medical practice in Torrance and West LA called Acuprolo Institute, Center for Restorative Health. Their unique life experiences led them to the practice of integrative medicine.
When the communists won the Vietnam War and took over South Vietnam, Dr. Vuong’s parents took their four children and fled the country on a small boat to escape the harsh conditions of living under the communist regime in hopes of providing their children the opportunity for a better life. Their mother was the co-captain of the boat. They were stranded in the treacherous South China Sea, along with 40 other people, for three days. They were robbed by pirates who also raped and tortured some of the people on the boat. When all was lost, including their boat engine, they relied on their strong faith and prayers. A merciful pirate ship towed them to land. Although they were young then, the Vuong sisters still recall what it was like living in refugee camps in Thailand and Indonesia for a year, where there was a shortage of food and no health care.
In 1982 they were sponsored to live in Madison Wisconsin. Not knowing the language or the culture, it was a culture shock to be one of only two Asian families in the city. Dr. Linh said, “I didn’t realize how different we were until the day my 6th-grade classmate told me to “go back to Ethiopia where you came from.” They grew up poor, on Welfare, living in government housing projects, and reliant on church donations. In 1987 the Vuong family moved to California in hopes of finding better opportunities, a warmer climate and to be closer to the Vietnamese community.
In California, they were met with different challenges. For as long as they can remember, their parents instilled in them the importance of getting higher education to change the course of their life. In Wisconsin, they were pushed to speak English at home because their parents didn’t want them to fall behind in school and to be more “white” to fit into society. When they came to California, they experienced reverse discrimination for not being “Asian enough.” They quickly learned that socioeconomic freedom came with a price. The Vuong children all worked hard to help their parents make ends meet. Dad worked three jobs as a janitor, Chinese food deliverer, and did graveyard shifts folding newspapers for the Daily Breeze. After school, the kids helped their mom sew clothes for the sweatshops until 1 or 2 am. They learned at a young age how to persevere through sacrifice and diligence. The Vuong children went on to graduate at the top of their class.
Ever since Dr. Tinh can remember, she has always wanted to be a doctor. The aspiration to follow this path was influenced by growing up with a great-grandmother who suffered from Alzheimer’s and having grandparents who were in medicine (one did integrative medicine and the other was a herbalist). With the hope of following in her grandfathers’ footsteps, after graduating from UCLA, Dr. Tinh pursued Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and graduated as class valedictorian at Emperor’s College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Through TCM, she acquired skills in acupuncture, herbal medicine, tai chi, qi gong, meditation and a philosophy of wholistic healing that is deeply rooted in her culture. Dr. Tinh attended Touro University College of Osteopathic Medicine because she was attracted to how osteopathy encompasses allopathic medicine while sharing the Eastern philosophy of mind, body and spirit as factors shaping one’s well-being. She has a fascination for the human body, with its power and innate ability to heal and maintain balance. She enjoyed learning osteopathic manual manipulation (OMM) in medical school and took on additional training to hone in her OMM skills. Her background in TCM, osteopathic principles and OMM, gave her great appreciation for preventative and primary care. She went on to complete her residency in Family Medicine at Harbor UCLA. As an immigrant and refugee, she understands the struggles of the marginalized population, which motivates her to also work at the Saban Community Clinic providing healthcare for the underserved while maintaining an integrative medicine practice with her sister.
Dr. Linh shares that after earning her bachelor’s at UCLA, “I had no clear vision of a career path and increased frustration because I felt I was not making any meaningful contributions to society.” She then joined her mother in a Buddhist pilgrimage to India and Nepal with a group of 40 other lay people led by several months and nuns. “That was when I developed a deeper appreciation for humanity, saw the scope of human suffering from lack of health care, and was inspired to pursue medicine.” After graduating from UCSD School of Medicine she did her residency at Harbor UCLA County hospital, where she once went as an uninsured patient. After four years in practice as a family physician in community clinics helping the underserved population, Dr. Linh went back to HUCLA to do a sports medicine fellowship training. She was motivated to learn as much as possible about treating musculoskeletal conditions having worked with so many impoverished labor workers with muscle/joint pain as well as dealing with her own aches and pains from being genetically hypermobile. Having an active lifestyle has always been important to Dr. Linh. Over the years, she has had multiple musculoskeletal injuries from doing sports and martial arts. Having exhausted the traditional treatments, she looked to complementary and alternative medicine. She is so grateful that Dr. Tinh is her sister because “Tinh knows so much, is always loving and doesn’t hesitate to drop everything to fix me when I’m in pain.
Over the last 15 years, the Vuong sisters have been on a quest to find a way to optimize health and healing in treating pain. They found OMM and acupuncture to be very helpful. When combined with nerve treatments like perineural injection therapy, nerve hydrodissection and regenerative injections (prolotherapy and platelet rich plasma) the healing process is expedited. Dr. Linh is passionate about integrative medicine because “It is so rewarding to see people who have failed conservative therapy get better with the multi-disciplinary approach that we use at Acuprolo Institute Center for Restorative Health.”
Drs. Linh and Tinh Vuong are dedicated to teaching clinical medicine. They teach prolotherapy in the US and internationally through the Hackett-Hemwall Patterson Foundation and the International Association for Regenerative Therapy. They are on staff at Harbor UCLA Department of Family Medicine and Sports Medicine where they have both previously been honored with the Volunteer Faculty of the Year Award. Dr. Tinh also teaches UCLA medical students and Cedar Sinai internal medicine residents at the Saban Community Clinic. Dr. Linh keeps up her conventional medicine skills as a sports medicine/urgent care physician for Providence Medical Associates in Torrance. She is also the team physician for the past ten years for her alma mater, North High School varsity football team.
The Vuong sisters are very passionate about doing philanthropy work to give back to the community. For more than a decade, they have participated in annual medical missions to Mexico and Honduras with the Hackett-Hemwall Patterson Foundation to teach doctors from around the world about prolotherapy regenerative injection therapies and treat thousands of patients with musculoskeletal pain. Their other siblings, Minh Vuong, Dao Vuong, and Dr. Linh’s husband, Phu Phan (who is also a Vietnamese boat person refugee), and their two young daughters also volunteer during the missions. Dr Vuong said, “When you grow up in poverty you have a great appreciation for the generosity of others and a motivation to pay it forward.”
The unique life experiences of the Vuong sisters make them compassionate to human suffering. They are committed to helping others achieve optimal health using a multi-modality approach to healing. They believe that healing takes many forms. Treating the body and diseases is not enough, one needs to heal the mind and spirit as well to be whole.
As you know, we’re big fans of Acuprolo Institute Center for Restorative Health. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
At Acuprolo Institute Drs. Linh Vuong and Tinh Vuong specialize in treating conditions that have failed conventional treatments. They use minimally invasive, nonsurgical approaches to stimulate natural healing mechanisms to alleviate pain, improve function and restore health.
The Acuprolo process consists of the following interventions:
1. Enhancing energy circulation using Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine and Osteopathic Manual Techniques.
2. Improving structural alignment using Osteopathic Manual techniques.
3. Stabilizing joints using cutting-edge technology with ultrasound guided regenerative injections of prolotherapy and platelet rich plasma (PRP) to regrow ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and bone.
4. Targeting nerves with perineural injection therapy and ultrasound guided nerve hydrodissection to eliminate pain and improve function.
5. Releasing mental stress, emotional stress and subconscious conditioning that adversely affect the body’s function, fluidity and homeostasis using biopsychosocial techniques and meditation.
6. Maintaining physical and emotional balance using individually tailored exercises and group exercises.
7. Providing dietary and nutritional counseling.
Both Dr. Linh and Dr. Tinh Vuong are trained in all of the above modalities and use a combination of some or all of the techniques in each patient to optimize their healing potential.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Life is not about winning competitions. Failure is one of our greatest teachers. Adversities and challenges in our lives can bring opportunities for growth, compassion and greater vision. When you do your best and act with love, kindness and thoughtfulness towards others, you will get rewarded beyond your expectations. Dream big and never lose sight of your dreams.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: Acuprolo.com
