Professor Roderick Tung balances medical career with a passion for men’s fashion
By Julie Lee
March 30, 2011 12:27 a.m.
Julianne Ahdout, a second-year medical student, walked into her cardiovascular electrophysiology lecture at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA to find a professor standing in the front dressed unconventionally for a doctor ““ in a three-piece tailored suit.
Ahdout and fellow classmates, such as second-year medical student James Lee, noted this difference in dress and proceeded to Google Professor Roderick Tung, a cardiologist at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
Lee said the students expected to find Tung’s UCLA faculty page; instead, the first Web result was for Tung’s fashion line.
Though there never seems to be enough time in a day to juggle both careers, for Tung, this race against the clock does not seem to be an issue.
“One of the phrases I hate is when people say they don’t have time,” Tung said. “What they mean to say is that they don’t make time.”
Tung spoke from experience ““ not only is he a physician and an assistant professor, he is also a successful fashion designer.
His self-titled clothing line is catered to create custom-made dress shirts for men. Attempting to perfect the men’s dress shirt, Tung focuses on the details to bring his vision to life ““ the cloth, the cut, the cuff and the collar, according to his website.
“One of my favorite looks was wearing a dress shirt without a tie and with a sports coat or with a suit,” Tung said. “None of the collars I found were perfect in terms of how they fit, and I wanted a collar that would pop, so I spent a long time researching different collars and basically engineering a collar that I believe … was the best.”
Though Tung said his inclination toward fashion came at a young age, he began his business of creating shirts during his cardiology fellowship at Cedars-Sinai. For Tung, designing shirts was a hobby that he found he had a passion for.
But Tung described his career in fashion as just that ““ a hobby.
“I am first and foremost a doctor, and I always will just be a doctor,” Tung said.
But this is not to diminish his achievements in the fashion field. Within five years, Tung managed to create two collections per year ““ a fall-winter and a spring-summer line ““ with buyers such as Neiman Marcus.
Only in his 30s, Tung managed to juggle a successful career in both the medical and fashion field. Though many have difficulty juggling even two majors, Tung argued that it is about prioritizing passions and hobbies.
“Everyone … has hobbies. Everyone goes out with their friends, everyone makes time for dinner,” Tung said. “But instead of going out, maybe you do one less dinner and you do a little bit more research on something that you like to do.”
Tung said he was concerned that his side career in fashion would give the wrong impression to his colleagues and patients.
“You don’t want to see your physician out and about socially,” Tung said. “So I think that’s what I was concerned about ““ the societal expectation that a physician need not be well-rounded. They need to be really good doctors, and that’s it.”
But rather than question his dedication to cardiology, Tung said his colleagues, peers and patients understand that, though he may enjoy creating a fashion line in his spare time, this hobby does not diminish his passion for medicine.
“The main reason I wanted people to know about him was because, usually, people think that physicians are cut-and-dry people and that’s all they can do,” Ahdout said. “But I like that he is evidence that (someone) can do multiple things and be successful at them and be well-rounded in … life.”
Tung’s two passions in life create a challenge that Tung said he is able to juggle for that reason alone ““ they are his passions. Tung said he would never choose between his 10- to 12-hour workdays and his fashion “hobby.”
“There is time,” Tung said. “You make time. It’s priorities.”
