28/07/2026
I’m a Doctor. Hepatitis B Almost Killed Me Anyway.
Submission by Trieu Pham M.D.
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I am an urgent care physician, and a hepatitis B patient who nearly died. Because I was not vaccinated as a child, I needed a liver transplant to survive.
I grew up in Vietnam, where hepatitis B vaccines were not available until the mid-1990s. Most people born before that—people like me, like my uncle, like millions in the endemic areas across Southeast Asia and Africa—were never vaccinated. Many people contract and carry the virus without knowing it. If people never develop obvious symptoms, they never know to get screened and tested. Then, when they reach their late 40s and 50s with chronic hepatitis, they develop complications like liver cancer and cirrhosis. A lot of these people die.
I had been living in the United States for four or five years when I learned that my uncle—my mother’s older brother—had died. Liver cancer, they told me later. After that, my family got serious. Everyone got tested. We found out that multiple members of my family were living with chronic hepatitis B.
I already knew I was one of them. I was tested after moving to the US and found out I had the virus. It was a challenge to accept and for me, personally, it was scary. Hepatitis B is a chronic condition. We can suppress the virus and try to minimize complications. But we don’t have medication that can clear the virus completely. It does not go away.
I tried, for a long time, not to think about it.
I understood the risks of hepatitis B—I am a physician, after all. But I never thought I would need a transplant.
About three years ago, I became so sick that I required continuous oxygen. My liver had stopped working well, and I had developed hepatorenal syndrome—one of the most serious complications of chronic liver disease. The only treatment is a liver transplant.
I remember thinking about life and death. I thought about how health is more important than anything else you have achieved in life. If you do not have your health, you cannot do anything. You cannot support your family. That realization changed me.
I was lucky. Because I’m a physician, I knew how to navigate the healthcare system to get to the right people. Most people back home in Vietnam don’t have that chance. Transplants are still relatively new there. I’ve heard horrible stories of people ending up with cirrhosis and cancer. If my story raises awareness and helps people understand how important prevention is, I’ve achieved my goal.
Rest of the story is linked in the comments below.
