Refugee-turned-surgeon thanks Catholic school with $25,000 gift

Published: 2003-11-24

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CNS) -- Thuy Nguyen believes in miracles, not coincidences. It was no coincidence, she said, that her family survived a week on the open sea after the fall of Saigon in 1975. It was no coincidence that, after living in refugee camps in the Philippines, Wake Island and Fort Chaffee, Ark., her family wound up in Kansas City. It was no coincidence that St. Pius High School took her in, at no tuition during her junior year, even though she couldn't speak a word of English. And it was no coincidence that teaching at St. Pius at that time was Sister Mary Aquinas, a Sister of Charity. The nun died in 1978, one year after Nguyen graduated. "It was a miracle," she said. "I don't believe in coincidences. God sent (Sister Mary Aquinas) to me." Thuy Nguyen is now Dr. Thuy Nguyen, a New York City plastic surgeon who devotes much of her practice to repairing wounds of the poor and elderly. She and her husband recently pledged $25,000 to the school, payable in five annual installments. More money, in gratitude for the start St. Pius and Sister Mary Aquinas gave her as a refugee citizen, will follow, she promised.

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