Medical student remembered for compassion, positivity
Stephanie Pham, a fourth-year medical student, died Dec. 31. She is remembered by teachers and friends as thoughtful, kind and intelligent. (Courtesy of Annie Pham)
By Maya McNealis
Jan. 28, 2020 12:06 a.m.
Medical student Neha Akkad called her friend and classmate Stephanie Pham in a panic one night. She couldn’t find the confidential patient information cards she had taken notes on during their shift together.
Even though Pham was nearly home after a 12-hour shift, she drove back to the hospital to help Akkad look, calmly retracing their steps until she found Akkad’s notes in a stairwell.
“I knew she just came back because she didn’t want me to be alone while I was freaking out,” Akkad said. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this might be the nicest person I’ve ever met.’”
Stephanie “Stephy” Pham died Dec. 31. A fourth-year medical student, Pham was set to graduate from the David Geffen School of Medicine in May. She was specializing in obstetrics and gynecology.
Her older sister, Annie Pham, who studied at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, said her sister was enduringly compassionate.
“(Stephanie) was the warmest, most loving, beautiful soul – she came from a culture that’s more reserved in showing our affection, but Stephanie always stood out, never shying away from hugging and kisses and making sure that you felt loved and appreciated,” she said.
The School of Medicine dean, Kelsey Martin, visited Stephanie at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where she died following a car accident involving her whole family and a drunk driver Dec. 31.
“Tragedy is the perfect word for it,” Martin said. “(Associate Dean) Lee Miller and I went to see her and her family, and when we walked in, there were about 10 of her classmates there, just completely devoted to her and her family. We could really see how beloved she was.”
Annie organized a GoFundMe campaign that has successfully raised over $68,800 of her $75,000 goal to cover medical, funeral and legal expenses as well as any lost income for her parents as a result of her sister’s death.
Her sister was planning to support their parents, Vietnamese immigrants, following her graduation, Annie said.
“Her mother told me that she would always try and give money to (Stephanie), and (she) wouldn’t take it because she was so grateful for everything they had given her that she didn’t want to take more,” Martin said.
Stephanie’s gratitude contributed to Akkad’s ability to stay positive during their rotations despite the stresses of medical school, Akkad said.
When Lauren Nathan, the program director for the OB-GYN residency training program at UCLA, met Stephanie, Nathan saw immediately how kind she was. Nathan wrote Pham’s letter of recommendation for her residency applications and advised her as she chose her specialty.
“I was thrilled that she was joining our specialty and was honored to write a letter of support for her,” Nathan said. “Not only did Stephanie possess the essential skills needed for an emotionally and physically demanding specialty such as OB-GYN, she stood out for her humility, her approachability, her gentle nature and her passion for women’s health care.”
Christopher Giza, a pediatric neurologist who oversaw Stephanie’s research in her second and third year of medical school, said Stephanie’s research on ketogenesis in children with traumatic brain injury has opened up new avenues for research that his team is still looking into today. She will be cited as an author in a paper her colleague Beth Nakae is publishing this year.
“It’s a big loss for the class, for the school and to medicine, I think,” Giza said. “She went much further on the research project than most students do. … When you have a student that’s really dedicated and puts in a lot of effort, when they leave for any reason, the work continues. And that’ll be something that we’ll always remember, that she helped us come up with this line of research.”
Martin said Stephanie will be awarded a posthumous medical degree at commencement, an honor that is important to her family and medical school classmates.
“It’s left (classmates) feeling this sense of loss and sorrow at an odd time, at this moment when they’re just about to finish, in their fourth year, after an enormous amount of hard work and dedication and there’s this sense of how unfair it is that Stephanie isn’t there to enjoy this period with them,” Martin said.
Most of all, Annie said that she will miss how warm and supportive her sister was.
“She really did live her life loving others, and she lit up any room with love,” Annie said.
