WINTHROP- A Vietnamese husband and wife doctor team, who will be practicing in Winthrop, are scheduled to arrive in Minnesota this week.

Dr. Tien Than and Dr. Thi Nhu Bui, refugees from South Vietnam, along with their five children, are in New York this week where they are being processed with other refugee medical personnel.

THE TIEN THAN family is being placed through Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota and is being sponsored by First Lutheran Church of Winthrop. They will be among the first families to be resettled in Minnesota under the Lutheran Social Service program. The husband-wife doctor team, reported to be fluent in English, will find a $55,000 clinic waiting for them in Winthrop.

Wilbur Adema, president of the Health Services Corp., a nonprofit organization that built the clinic, said Winthrop now has only a part-time doctor, a man in his 60s. The clinic is not yet equipped,Adema said, but could be “in a couple weeks.”

THE FEDERAL government is asking that the refugee doctors be given temporary licenses to practice medicine while they get further training and pass state board examinations.

Both doctors are graduates of Saigon University Medical School. Thien Than has specialist degrees in orthopedic surgery and in ear, nose and throat problems. He has been surgery chief for two military hospitals and a general hospital in South Vietnam.

His wife is a general practitioner and a pediatrician who was in private practice in Saigon for seven years.

Health Services Corp. plans to let the refugee doctors use the clinic building rent-free for six months, then give them low rent for another year or two, Adema said.

Winthrop has raised $18,000 toward the cost of the clinic building, which has been financed through debenture bonds and a bank loan.

Dr. Morris Wee, director of resettlement for Lutheran Social Service, said the agency plans to resettle 180 Vietnamese refugee families in Minnesota. It is hoped the job will be finished within one month.

New Ulm Daily Journal

May 27, 1975