With more than four decades of medical work, Prof. Nguyen Gia Binh says he has saved thousands of critically ill patients at Hanoi’s Bach Mai Hospital. His long career makes his story worth reading for anyone interested in practical medical innovation.

Prof. Nguyen Gia Binh describes himself as a “rustic country doctor.” He adds that he is President of the Vietnam Association of Emergency Medicine and a former head of the intensive‑care unit at Bach Mai Hospital.

In 1987, while on a mission in Cambodia, Prof. Nguyen Gia Binh explains that the team had no dialysis machines. Together with the late Prof. Vu Van Dinh, they mixed ordinary intravenous fluids to make a peritoneal‑dialysis solution, allowing treatment of patients with severe malaria and acute kidney failure.

He says the improvised dialysis was later applied in central Vietnam to treat malignant malaria complicated by acute renal failure. Later, Prof. Nguyen Gia Binh introduced continuous renal replacement therapy and other blood‑purification methods, which he reports reduced septic‑shock deaths from 60 % to 40 %, organ‑failure deaths from 80 % to 50 %, and severe pancreatitis deaths from 50 % to 10 %.

After completing advanced training in France, Prof. Nguyen Gia Binh tells us he turned down foreign jobs that paid many times more, choosing instead to return to Vietnam and keep improving patient care. His choice shows that dedication and creativity can overcome limited resources.