Dr. Thanh Neville: Life and death in the ICU

As we approach the end of 2021 and the second holiday season of the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us are tired, frustrated, and impatient to see transmission rates drop and restrictions further loosened.
Meanwhile, our front-line medical workers are bracing themselves for a repeat of last winter’s surge in hospitalizations, driven this year by the non-vaccinated.
Dr. Thanh Neville is an ICU physician, researcher, and the current medical director of UCLA’s 3 Wishes Program – which fulfills end-of-life wishes for hospitalized patients and their families – and she’s a graduate of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Her research centers on improving palliative care for patients in the critical care setting.
On Monday, Nov. 29, Dr. Neville will participate in the final session of this year’s UCLA Arts public discussion series 10 Questions to discuss the question, “How do we love?” alongside human rights attorney, professor, and advocate Ahilan Arulanantham, and opera, film, theater, and festival director Peter Sellars.
On this episode of the UCLA Arts podcast Works In Progress, Dr. Neville shares her thoughts on medical worker burnout, mandatory vaccinations, and politicizing the pandemic, and describes her perspective as a first-generation college student and the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants.