When Dr. Hung Trinh was an undergraduate at UCLA, volunteering at a mobile medical clinic helped him make the decision to pursue a career as a physician. “It was the idea of being able to treat and help people every day that made me want to go into medicine.”

In his practice at Reliant Dr. Trinh treats a full range of rheumatologic conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, gout, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and many others. As a rheumatologist, he is excited by the new medications that have been developed to help patients. “It seems that every year there is a new batch of biologic medications. Everything is moving faster now in terms of what medicines we have to treat patients and everyone is really benefitting from that,” he explains.

When making a diagnosis, Dr. Trinh makes a point to take into account everything that the patient has to say about their condition, in addition to looking at all the data. “Oftentimes the crux of the problem is found not through any specific testing, but by simply talking to the patient and eliciting a detailed history and physical. Rheumatologic conditions often encompass a lot of different systems in the body and are not always easy to diagnose.”

Dr. Trinh says that rheumatologists have gotten very good at treating inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis because there are potent medicines to treat them. However, the non-inflammatory disorders like fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis can be more difficult to treat. “There are a lot of things you have to take into account when treating non-inflammatory disorders, it’s a little more complex in some ways to treat them.”

When he is not busy treating patients, Dr. Trinh enjoys cooking with his wife and trying new cuisines. He also enjoys a good cup of coffee and pastry on the weekends.