A native Houstonian, Dr Nguyen received his undergraduate degree at Rice University in Houston, and later his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. He then trained in general surgery at Stanford University in California, where he spent three years in Dr Craig Miller’s laboratory studying mitral disease in an ovine model. Dr Nguyen undertook his cardiothoracic surgery training at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, followed by an advanced structural heart fellowship at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.