Doctor Tran Thanh Trai during the days he traveled with Tuoi Tre on the journey "For Future Smiles" in 1997 - Photo: Minh Hao
During a visit to Dr. Tran Thanh Trai at his house on Highway 1, Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City, we saw him lying there, looking at the guests with a smile on his lips, gently raising his hand to shake and hold each person for a long time. "Are you well?". He smiled again and said: "I know you're well just by shaking hands."
Very happy. I asked: Do you remember anyone? He stared at me for a while, without answering, then suddenly he burst out, full of emotion, saying: "Wolf's Mouth used to have a husband. I miss it so much, Nguyen". I squeezed his hand tightly, my heart filled with emotion, as so many images from years past came flooding back...
Find your smile again
It turns out he still remembers the "Wolf's Mouth" in the mountains and forests of Nghe An : those were the years when Tuoi Tre newspaper and Children's Hospital 1 (HCMC) organized the program "For the Smile of the Future", repairing cleft lips and palates for the poor in many provinces and cities across the country, and Dr. Tran Thanh Trai was always the leader. The program left behind so many beautiful images.
When the program was implemented in Nghe An, on the third day, nearly 50 cases had been "patched" up, a patient appeared. That was Lo Thi Phanh, a Thai girl from Ky Son district, who looked healthy and had beautiful eyes. However, her strong hands kept covering her nose and mouth, and she kept burying her face behind her mother's back. After much persuasion, she finally agreed to go into the clinic.
When she put her hands down, everyone was startled: her lips were split, revealing a sunken red gum area... Because of her disability, the whole village called her "Wolf's Mouth". The older Phanh grew, the more ashamed she became, to the point that Phanh hid in her robe the top of the Tat rock, precariously perched on the edge of a deep abyss, where Phanh climbed... But she could not die, and she buried herself in shame and suffering.
And today Phanh was brought to the program "For Future Smiles". This is a difficult and special case with high aesthetic requirements, so Dr. Trai took charge along with two doctors Nguyen Bao Tuong and Le Thanh Hung...
The surgery was successful, Phanh returned to his village. And as the years passed, Phanh's nickname "Wolf's Snout" gradually faded into oblivion in the mountains and forests of the Ky Son border region.
A few years later, during a meeting of the National Assembly (11th term) in Hanoi , he called Tuoi Tre and said cheerfully: "This is Tran Thanh Trai. The program For Future Smiles, Mom Wolf in Ky Son, remember? The guys at the Nghe An Children's Care Committee just informed me: Mom Wolf from the past has a husband. Happy...".
Shortly after that, when we returned to Ky Son, we wrote an article, using his words as the title ("The old wolf's snout already had a husband", Tuoi Tre Xuan 1999) to talk about the change in Phanh's life and fate, a change that started from the heart, from the talent of the doctor's hands.
But Lo Thi Phanh is not alone: in just over three years of working with Tuoi Tre to implement the program "For Future Smiles", he and doctors at Children's Hospital 1 have returned smiles and changed the unfortunate fate of nearly 3,000 adolescents with cleft lip and cleft palate in 11 provinces and cities.
He spent almost his entire professional life working with children, especially cleft lip and palate repair and "circumcision surgery" (which he liked to call "foreskin enlargement"). His love for children, as he often said, "seemed to be innate in me and grew deeper and deeper as I came into contact with these little angels."
It was that love that urged him to think and learn more to improve the surgery department and the burn treatment room (now the burn department) of Children's Hospital 1 to save the little children writhing in pain; and contributed to building the pediatric surgery department of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Ho Chi Minh City.
People know him best through the surgery to separate the Song Pha twins, a special pair of twins whose livers were stuck together like sausages. And his talented hands slowly separated the tiny blood vessels to save the two little creatures. Six months later, there was another famous surgery: separating the Viet Duc twins with Dr. Tran Dong A.
Many people know his name, but perhaps few people know that although he has performed surgery on thousands of children, every time he touches the lips or "chili peppers" of boys, he always keeps in mind and reminds himself to do his best to create perfection and beauty, because, as he often says, "that surgical line will follow the children throughout their lives, contributing to bringing happiness and a warm home for their entire lives...".
Doctor Tran Thanh Trai during the days he traveled with Tuoi Tre on the journey "For Future Smiles" in 1997 - Photo: Minh Hao
try a little more
During the days we spent with him and the doctors of Children's Hospital 1 implementing the program "For the Smile of the Future", we were always surprised by him and his team. The first surprise was their passion for work, a passion that came from a love for the profession and for strange people. Implementing the program in a province usually took from five to seven days.
Every day, at 7:30, he and the doctors and nurses would enter the operating room and the last person, usually him, would leave the operating room around 7 or 8 at night. At noon, when anyone had a little break, they would come out to wash their hands and grab a loaf of bread or a plate of rice.
Yet every time he pulled down his mask to talk to patients or their families, we always saw his eyes light up and his lips always smile warmly and intimately.
Knowing that everyone in the group was tired, he often kindly said: "Never mind, try a little harder to help one more patient, and will more or less contribute to changing the fate of a person." And to "rest and regain strength in a positive way", in the evening after returning to the hotel, he often invited everyone to go sing karaoke, sometimes go for a walk and eat balut.
One time in Pleiku, after 11pm, he and some doctors were sitting at a roadside restaurant eating balut when they heard the sound of an ambulance siren in the cold, quiet night. Before anyone knew what was happening, the car stopped right at the roadside restaurant...
It turned out: a cleft palate surgery had bleeding, the hospital's on-duty doctor called the team, Dr. Hoai Thu and two nurses Tuyet and Be immediately got into the car. They, along with the hospital's doctors and nurses, tried their best to save the patient, but the situation was too critical, Dr. Hoai Thu put her hand on the patient's chest to perform CPR, and exclaimed: "Call Dr. Trai for me", and the hospital car blared its siren and sped away. He and everyone got into the car, leaving behind the unfinished duck eggs they had just peeled.
The leader stood before the patient again. After 1:00 a.m., together with the doctors and nurses, Dr. Hoai Thu smiled broadly and joked: "It's over, it's over, everyone". After 1:30 a.m., the patient was taken out of the operating room. Suddenly, he ordered: "Everyone go home and rest, regain your strength for tomorrow...". He and Dr. Phuoc stayed to monitor the patient until nearly 3:00 a.m. before returning to the hotel. The hotel was closed, and the two doctors, afraid of being disturbed, climbed over the wall and entered.
Remembering many things about him, we can fully understand what he once said: "I wish there was a miracle that could one day fix the cleft lips and palates of all our unfortunate children." And now on his sickbed, that dream still seems to flow within him.
Dr. Hoai Thu said: "He lay there, paralyzed, but every time I visited him, he still confidently expressed: In the future, we will drive ourselves to remote and poor areas to operate on children."
According to Dr. Hoai Thu, when his students sat by his hospital bed, he did not talk about his illness but only expressed his passion and desire to contribute, always maintaining the calm and confident demeanor of someone who spent his life holding a scalpel. He always reminded them that their class was more talented than him and had better conditions, so they should try to help poor children more.
As a teacher, he guides, instructs and shares his experience in every aspect of his profession; as an older brother, he always helps with big and small things in life.
Dr. Hoai Thu told a story about him with tears in her eyes: "Once, Dr. Hoa and I went with him to a conference in Hanoi. In the morning, seeing us busy and afraid of being late, he ironed Hoa's shirt and pulled my suitcase for me. At that time, he was a National Assembly delegate."
Dr. Hien, anesthesiologist of the pediatric surgery department of Children's Hospital 1, a regular member of the group that he brought to implement the program "For Future Smiles", said: "From those trips, Mr. Trai lit the torch of charity dedication in me. Then, throughout the years working with him at Children's Hospital 1, then Trieu An Hospital, he always reminded me to keep the fire in my heart. And until now, even though he is bedridden, he still visits and encourages me every time I go to charity surgery."
Sitting by his bed in the empty house, in the empty room but not silent: he still talked, still smiled. He recalled the trips to Nghe An, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Kon Tum, he mentioned the brothers and sisters of Tuoi Tre newspaper who organized the program, Mr. Nam Dong, Mr. Nhut, Ms. Tram.
And then we had to say goodbye. He shook hands with each of us for a long time, affectionately. As we walked out, he called out: "Tuoi Tre Newspaper has to organize another program, I will go, if I can't go, then there will be a group of young people who will go. In many remote areas, in the mountains and forests, there are still many children who need surgery, there are still children who are called "wolf mouths" like Phanh... Remember that."
Doctor Tran Thanh Trai, former head of the Department of Surgery at Children's Hospital 1, Ho Chi Minh City, former head of the Department of Pediatric Surgery at Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy, and member of the 10th National Assembly... passed away at 4:20 a.m. on May 31, 2025. He was 88 years old.
The coffin will be placed at the private residence at 734 National Highway 1, Binh Hung Hoa Ward, Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City. Visitation will start at 2:30 p.m. on May 31, 2025. The funeral will start at 9 a.m. on June 4, 2025. Cremation will be at Binh Hung Hoa Cremation Center.
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Source: https://tuoitre.vn/bac-si-tran-thanh-trai-mot-doi-cho-nghe-cho-nguoi-20250601081657999.htm
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