'Big hospital care'

OTHELLO — General surgeon Sam Hsieh – pronounced “shay” - traveled an interesting road to his full-time job at Othello Hospital.  

“I was born in Hong Kong and moved to Canada when I was five,” he said. “I did my med school in Ireland and met my wife there. We went to Texas for our residency training program.”  

Hsieh joined the staff as the full-time surgeon in early February. Prior to joining OCH he worked as the general surgeon at Coulee Medical Center in Grand Coulee for 10 years. 

His wife Elizabeth Hsu, an endocrinologist, provides telemedicine services for CMC. She was born in Taiwan, grew up in London, moved to New Zealand and then went to Ireland for medical school. 

With residency and starting practice, they lied in Galveston, Texas for five years, he said. But Texas was a little far from everybody they knew.  

"We decided to move back closer to home, which is Vancouver, British Columbia. That’s where I grew up,” Hsieh said.  

Closer to family did not necessarily mean going back to Vancouver; the state of Washington seemed like a good fit, he said. They were working in the United States on a visa program with very specific requirements. 

“We came in on one of the toughest visas, the J1 visa, and with the J1 visa, one of the criteria — which actually fit along with our plans — was that you had to practice in an underserved area. We chose to (work) in Grand Coulee. And you only had to commit for three years, but we loved it so much we stayed,” he said.  

He still practices at CMC, seeing patients in Grand Coulee about twice a month, he said. 

Hsieh started seeing patients in Othello on a part-time basis in February 2024, after the retirement of Othello’s longtime surgeon. He found Othello to be a good fit, too. 

“I came to help get some cases going, because (Othello Community Hospital) was without a surgeon for about 18 months. And honestly, the more I came here, the more I fell in love with the people, the community, and the patients too,” Hsieh said. “They offered me the position to kind of help Othello grow the surgery center, and that’s what I love doing. I love helping a place build, either from the ground up or from whatever (foundation) they have, to improve on it, make it better.” 

He always planned to be a physician, he said, but not necessarily a surgeon. His first interest was pediatrics.  

“But what I realized was, as an internal medicine doctor, you can only go so far before you have to call for help. You just hit a wall where you need a surgeon to come in and (complete the case). I didn’t like that wall,” Hsieh said. “I wanted to be to be the one to complete that care.” 

A general surgeon in a rural hospital will treat a lot of different conditions, he said. 

“General surgery means different things in different hospitals, but in rural America general surgery really is a true general surgeon. You need to do almost everything that you can,” he said.  

That includes conditions like a hernia, gastrointestinal examinations, a gallbladder, or an appendix, among others. He also plans to start a wound care department, he said. That includes things like post-surgical cases and people with skin conditions that come with some chronic illnesses. He started a wound care center while working at CMC.  

“There’s a huge population that needs that care,” he said.  

He loves to work on cars, he said, and Hsieh, Hsu and their three children love to try new foods. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted Hsu and their children to move to Seattle to be closer to relatives.  

“She understood that I love rural medicine so much that we’ve made this work for us,” he said. 

Expanding services in Othello is his goal, he said. 

“I always have that mentality that even though we’re a small hospital we can do big hospital care,” he said. 

    Othello Community Hospital surgeon Sam Hsieh, right, shakes hands with a visitor during a community introduction Tuesday.