• UCLA Health
  • myUCLAhealth
  • School of Medicine
U Magazine

U Magazine

U Magazine
  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Centennial Campaign for UCLA Issue
  • Browse U Magazine
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • UCLA Health
  • myUCLAhealth
  • School of Medicine

U Magazine

Browse U Magazine

  1. Home
  2. Browse U Magazine
Share this
Friends

Project to Improve the End-of-Life Experience Marks Its First Anniversary

 

Ronald Katz, Johnese Spisso and Madelyn Gordon
Dr. Peter Phung, patient family member Anita Amos and Dr. Thanh Neville
The 3 Wishes Memory Tree

Top: (From left) 3 Wishes Project donors and leadership Ronald Katz, Johnese Spisso and Madelyn Gordon. Middle: (From left) Dr. Peter Phung, patient family member Anita Amos and Dr. Thanh Neville. Bottom: The 3 Wishes Memory Tree. Photos: Jessie Cowan

To commemorate the first anniversary of the 3 Wishes Project, a reception was held on March 20, 2019, at the UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin Conference Center for families served by the program and the donors and staff who made it possible. The program, launched in December 2017, fulfills wishes for patients who are in their final days or hours of life. The 3 Wishes Project has served more than 150 patients and has transformed the dying process into an opportunity to honor a patient’s wishes and autonomy, celebrate their life and create positive memories for families during final moments.

Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health, CEO of the UCLA Hospital System and associate vice chancellor of UCLA Health Sciences, gave the opening remarks and expressed her hope that the program will expand systemwide. She also recognized Ronald Katz, Jodi and Greg Perlman, Anne and Arnold Porath, Pamela and Robert Krupka and Vitas Healthcare for their philanthropy and continued support of the 3 Wishes Project. Co-founders Dr. Thanh Neville (MD ’05, RES ’08, FEL ’11) and Dr. Peter Phung reflected on how the program epitomizes patient-centered care and reminds them of why they chose their profession. “Being able to do nice things for patients and their families when medicine has reached its limits — this is a true privilege,” Dr. Neville said. Anita Amos, whose mother died in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center last year, shared how the program gave her mother a peaceful, dignified death. Families of prior 3 Wishes patients remembered their loved ones by sharing memories on heart-shaped notecards, which will be memorialized as part of a Memory Tree in the MICU.

For more information, contact Lauren Davis at: 310-267-1844


Previous
A Fitting Tribute: The Garry Shandling Learning Studio
Next
UCLA Center for East-West Medicine Celebrates 25 Years


YOU ARE VIEWING

Summer 2019

Summer 2019
Printable PDF
IN THIS ISSUE
  • Health Is a Human Right
  • The NICU’s Alive with the Sound of Music
  • Scientists Create a Renewable Source of Cancer-fighting T Cells
  • Fractures, Head Injuries Common in E-scooter Collisions
  • Critical New Clues about What Goes Awry in Brains of People with Autism
  • Shorter Course of Radiation Therapy Effective in Treating Men with Prostate Cancer
  • Study Overturns Dogma of Cancer Metabolism Theory 8 U
  • Electrical Activity Early in Fruit Flies’ Brain Development Could Shed Light on How Neurons Wire the Brain
  • The Demedicalization of Mental Illness
  • Brain Chat: Baljit S. Khakh, PhD
  • Expanded Interview: Baljit S. Khakh, PhD
  • A New Kind of House Call
  • Stepping Back from the Edge
  • Healing Is the Goal
  • Awards & Honors
  • In Memoriam
  • HOSTs Extend Help to Medical Students Interviewing for Residency
  • UCLA Celebrates the Philanthropy of Laurie and Steven Gordon
  • A Fitting Tribute: The Garry Shandling Learning Studio
  • Project to Improve the End-of-Life Experience Marks Its First Anniversary
  • UCLA Center for East-West Medicine Celebrates 25 Years
  • Philanthropy Advances Stroke Care and Honors Dr. Wally Ghurabi
  • Grey Matters Event Sheds Light on Memories
  • UCLA Celebrates Lasker Award-recipient Dr. Michael Grunstein
  • Epilepsy Foundation Endows Fellowship Program in UCLA Pediatrics
  • TEDxUCLA Salon Tackles Depression
  • UCLA Cardiovascular Theme Hosts Innovations in Heart and Lung Transplantation Event
  • Lunch with the Scientists Celebrates Research Accomplishments
  • UCLA Head and Neck Surgery Celebrates Calcaterra Family’s Philanthropy and the Inaugural Calcaterra Chair Holder
  • Gifts
  • In Memoriam
  • Mosquitoes, Malaria and Me
Like Us on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter Subscribe to Our Videos on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Connect with Us on LinkedIn Follow us on Pinterest
UCLA Health hospitals ranked best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report
  • UCLA Health
  • Find a Doctor
  • School of Medicine
  • School of Nursing
  • UCLA Campus
  • Directory
  • Newsroom
  • Subscribe
  • Patient Stories
  • Giving
  • Careers
  • Volunteer
  • International Services
  • Privacy Practices
  • Nondiscrimination
  • Billing
  • Health Plans
  • Emergency
  • Report Broken Links
  • Terms of Use
  • 1-310-825-2631
  • Maps & Directions
  • Contact Us
  • Your Feedback
  • Report Misconduct
  • Get Social
  • Sitemap
Like Us on Facebook Follow Us on Twitter Subscribe to Our Videos on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Connect with Us on LinkedIn Follow us on Pinterest

Sign in to myUCLAhealth