Alum pursues MBA, M.D. after mother’s death

Tony Hung was only seven years old when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. He said he didn’t understand what dying meant.

“I just knew I wanted to make my mom happy, and that meant finding something that could save her,” said Hung, a recent graduate of the David Geffen School of Medicine and the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

Watching his mother suffer from cancer inspired Hung to pursue a career centered around affordable and holistic medical care.

After studying biochemistry as a UCLA undergraduate student and completing two years of medical school, Hung said he realized a degree in medicine was not enough to reach his goal. He needed a business education in order to eventually create and operate his own nonprofit cancer treatment centers.

“I wanted to do something beyond medicine,” said Hung, currently a resident at the Olive View UCLA Medical Center in the San Fernando Valley.

It was difficult for his family to afford high-quality health care when he was a child in Hong Kong. After immigrating with his family to Los Angeles when he was 10 years old , affording health care for his sick mother remained a challenge.

After battling breast cancer for more than 13 years, Hung’s mother passed away during his second year at UCLA.

“I remember it was raining that day and I wrote in my journal that if the rain knew how much pain I felt, there would be a flood by now,” Hung said.

His mother was the anchor of the family. When she passed away, his father became depressed and struggled with unemployment, he said.

Through his countless visits to the hospital with his mother and his work with patients in medical school, Hung said he realized the importance of treating those he cares for as more than their diseases. He said he regularly prays for his patients with breast cancer.

“I learned what it meant to look at a person as a whole person and not just as an illness,” he said.

Hung said in medical school he bonded with one of his mentors, Dr. Richard Finn, when he discovered they both lost their mothers to breast cancer during college.

“We did very much connect because we shared similar stories,” Finn said. “My mother’s breast cancer also brought me to oncology.”

When Hung decided to pursue business after completing his second year of medical school in an effort to better pursue his ultimate goal, his medical school mentors were supportive of his decision.

Hung considers Dr. Ka-Kit Hui, director of UCLA’s Center for East-West Medicine, a second father. Hui supported Hung’s decision to pursue an MBA and exposed him to global health matters, Hung said.

“The health care system needs people with a business education to look at (the) value of the health care being provided,” Hui said. “Tony is not someone who is there to just make a lot of money, but to use his knowledge to help people.”

Hung said taking a year off from medical school to attend business school allowed him to be more creative and look at effective breast cancer treatment from a different perspective.

“Business school was a way for me to explore what I could do beyond medicine in order to help underserved populations,” Hung said

Hung’s ultimate goal is to be an oncologist and to create nonprofit clinics that serve as one-stop shops for cancer patients. These clinics would provide integrated care, including medical, psychological and social treatments.

“I think getting both degrees was the first step, but I’m still learning — there’s so much to learn,” he said.