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New internist brings open mind, passion for new experiences to post

The Medical Center’s newest physician, Dr. Chen Huang, has never lived in a town as small as New Ulm, heard about Heritagefest or experienced a Minnesota winter.

Yet she has no doubt she’ll feel right at home as she takes up practice in Internal Medicine and later the Oncology department.

“I think more important than the culture is your working attitude,” said Dr. Huang, a Brazilian of Taiwanese descent. “If you have the same beliefs and the same attitudes about work, I think you should be able to fit in.”

While working at a medical facility in a small town in Brazil, populated mainly by northern Italians, she shared the same working attitude as her fellow residents and felt like one pea in a large pod, Dr. Huang said.

“So instead of pasta and polenta and cornbread, I’ll have sauerkraut and beer.”

Albeit short on knowledge on German tradition, Dr. Huang’s knowledge of medicine is extensive.

A 1992 medical school graduate of the Faculdade de Medicina at UFRGS, which is the Brazilian federal university, Huang spent seven years in the United States completing a residency program in internal medicine at St. Mary’s Hospital in Rochester, N.Y. and an oncology fellowship at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

When she finished her studies in New York and Pennsylvania, she moved back to Brazil and began working as an urgent care physician near her hometown of Porto Alegre.

In 2004, she began pursuing a position at a hospital in Connecticut, but that opportunity fell through, she said.

“So I started looking again. When you live outside of the United States the only way to look for a job is through the Internet, so I did a search and got connected with Tim Wieben, a physician recruiter.” Dr. Huang said.

Wieben, a native of New Ulm and a former employee of the medical clinic, now recruits physicians for a national firm based out of North Dakota. He arranged an interview for Dr. Huang with the Medical Center.

“I didn’t have strict criteria as to where I wanted to go, so I interviewed in New Ulm, Missouri, Arizona and Virginia,” she said. “Initially, I was strongly considering Virginia, but once I visited New Ulm, I decided this was the right community for me.”

“I feel that the people really care about each other here. I lot of places have nice facilities and are good to work at, but when you walk in, there are a lot of politics. Here, it didn’t feel that way. It feels like people really care about others and their work. More than anything, I wanted to make sure that people appreciate what I do.”

Initially Dr. Huang is seeing patients in her specialty area of internal medicine. In the future, she will work with Dr. Daniel Frenning, from Abbott Northwestern’s Virginia Piper Cancer Institute, who comes to New Ulm weekly to see chemotherapy patients. In addition to her fellowship in oncology, Dr. Huang plans to become board certified in oncology and transition completely to caring for cancer patients.

To be sure, Dr. Huang is excited about having the opportunity to provide care to Medical Center patients.

“When doing urgent care in Brazil, resources are very limited. I had to make do with what was available, and it was not always the best standard of care,” Dr. Huang said. “One of my goals was to practice in a place where I have the resources to do what’s best for the patients.”

What’s more, having innovative technologies and the ability to draw on medical tools that were not available in Brazil will keep Dr. Huang’s skills sharp as she continues to learn about medical advancements, she said.

In some ways, it’s all supports the reason she decided to pursue internal medicine and oncology.

“It involves more detective-type of work,” Dr. Huang said. “Other specialties have a lot of routine practices, but internal medicine requires you to do a great deal of critical reasoning – how to come to a diagnosis for a patient who may have multiple complex conditions.”

Dr. Huang is not all business, she is outspoken and likes to laugh. She understands that patients are people and she likes to develop close relationships with them, she said.

“I enjoy establishing a good rapport with my patients,” Dr, Huang said. “I think that’s a good way to work because when they call you with a problem, it doesn’t feel like work – it feels like helping a friend.”

New Ulm Medical Center
1324 Fifth St. N.
New Ulm, MN 56073
507-233-1000
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