Thao Nguyen, MD, MPH
Thao Nguyen, MD, MPH
Third-year Resident
Thao Nguyen, MD, MPH, spent the first 16 years of her life growing up in Vietnam. Her paternal grandparents relocated to Lincoln, Nebraska as refugees in the 90s and then sponsored his extended family to move here, so she feels that Lincoln is her second home. She enjoys cooking and Vietnamese cuisine, board games, and traveling. Growing up, Dr. Nguyen wanted to be a math teacher because she was good at math and liked to teach. Then she fell in love with medicine which allowed her to promote positive health outcomes and high quality of life.
Dr. Nguyen received her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her greatest accomplishment has been attending medical school and earning dual degrees in Medicine and Public Health with High Distinction from the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC). Dr. Nguyen was also selected to be the 2021 UNMC recipient of the U.S. Public Health Service Excellence Award. Her work with the underserved population is important and stems from her time being an ESL class coordinator, an interpreter, and a student medical provider at free clinics in Lincoln and Omaha. At the Centers for Reducing Health Disparities at UNMC, she was involved in studying the health disparities and social determinants of health among the refugees in Nebraska.
Two significant reasons led Dr. Nguyen to become a doctor. Her great-grandfather was one of the first doctors in Vietnam and family members would share stories about how he used his medical knowledge to help people. Also, growing up in Vietnam, Dr. Nguyen saw first-hand how sick people were suffering in hospitals and she wanted to be able to care for them. Family medicine doesn’t exist in her birth country like we know it to be in the U.S. She was drawn to family medicine because of the longitudinal relationships she can establish with patients and to provide preventive medicine to promote healthy outcomes, an area she has a strong interest in.
When it came to selecting a residency program, Lincoln Family Medicine Program was the right choice. She knew from doing rotations here that it was a big family of people who worked together to provide comprehensive and compassionate care to patients. The program offers broad spectrum training that can be tailored to each resident’s goals. She also liked that she was familiar with local resources and would be able to establish connections given she would like to stay and practice in Lincoln after residency.