The plastic surgeon who defies expectations

By Stephen Baldwin, RealWV

Dr. Vinh Nguyen isn’t a typical surgeon. He always wears scrubs, enjoys hitting a punching bag for exercise, and loves to make people laugh. 

“Most people expect doctors to wear a suit and tie,” he says. “Why would you tie a loop around your neck every morning? That doesn’t make sense to me.” 

Many of the regular expectations people have of their doctors are subverted when they meet Dr. Nguyen, which is just how he likes it. 

“Most people expect doctors to be serious; I like to have fun. They expect a plastic surgeon to wear a suit and tie; I wear scrubs everywhere.” 

As he shares this with me, he is adjusting his white coat, which is perfectly crisp and appears brand new. 

“I just put this coat on today because you wanted to take my picture,” he confesses with a deep laugh. “Scrubs are my style. That way I don’t have to do laundry because the hospital does it for me!”

A long journey back to West Virginia

Dr. Nyugen works for CAMC Greenbrier Valley as a plastic surgeon. He is originally from Vietnam, but he has a long history in West Virginia. 

When he was 7, he and his family fled Vietnam on a boat. They were arrested, and he spent two weeks in jail. 

A year later, they tried again. This time, they made it to Thailand via a treacherous boat ride.

“I was too young to be too scared,” he remembers, though the details of the voyage were frightening. 

They eventually made it to Canada, then to California, then Florida, before Vinh came to live with relatives in Charleston, WV, as a teenager. He graduated from Capital High School before attending West Virginia State. Then in 2005, he fulfilled a personal and family dream of becoming a doctor when he graduated from the WV School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg, WV. 

“Dennis Maloney was the counselor at the O school then,” he shares. “I went to Michigan to do my residency, and he said most people don’t come back to West Virginia. I wanted to prove him wrong.”

“West Virginia had given me opportunities,” he says, “so I wanted to give back to people when I completed my residency.”

So that’s exactly what he did, returning to the Greenbrier Valley to work for CAMC Greenbrier Valley doing plastic surgery. He hopes his family from Vietnam can join him here eventually, but that will be several years down the road.

What he does: reconstructive plastic surgery

“When people think of plastic surgery, they think of tummy tucks, breast augmentations, nose jobs,” he says. “I do those things, but that’s not much of it.” 

Dr. Nguyen explains that plastic surgery falls into two main categories–cosmetic and reconstructive. Cosmetic plastic surgery involves elective procedures that change a person’s appearance. Reconstructive plastic surgery is far more common and takes most of Dr. Nyugen’s time. 

“I do wound care, reconstruction for cancer patients, skin grafts, eyelid surgery to get rid of droopiness that hurt vision, and reconstruction after car or work accidents,” he explains. “Everything from head to toe.”

The changing and comprehensive nature of plastic surgery is what drew him to the work. 

“When I went into medical school, i didn’t know what I wanted to be,” he recollects. “I said family medicine at the time, but then in rotations I got interested in surgery. I like to work with my hands. In my second year residency, one of my attending physicians did plastic surgery procedures and I got interested in that. I did an elective rotation and liked it. It allows me to work from head to toe. I can work with everyone from small kids to older patients. A wide range of procedures too.” 

“I’m just here to help”

When Dr. Nguyen isn’t in surgery or on call at the hospital–which is most of the time–he enjoys fishing and hiking. He also goes to the gym every day. 

While he may be a surgeon whose hands provide for his livelihood, he isn’t afraid to get them dirty. “They have a punching bag at the gym. I punch the bag to condition the bone. The bone gets thicker if you condition it. I want my bones to get stronger.”  

Which is not to say he doesn’t have limits. “But as far as using a table saw, I don’t do that anymore. A few times I got a little too close to the saw while remodeling a house a few years ago.”

“I still use chainsaws,” he says with a hearty laugh. 

If you’d like to schedule an appointment with Dr. Vihn Nyugen, you can reach him at 304-793-3510.

While he subverts expectations, he does want to be clear with the community about what services he provides. That’s why he personally visited most doctor’s offices in the area to introduce himself when he moved back. He wanted them all to know exactly how he could help their patients. 

“I’m just here to help people,” he says. “If they don’t know how you can help, then you can’t help them.”