Thu H. Le, MD, Shares Outlook Shaped by Compassion

Thu H. Le, MD, brings not only extensive experience and accolades to her new role as chair of the Department of Medicine but also a perspective rooted in healing, compassion, service and impact.

UC Irvine is pleased to welcome Thu H. Le, MD, who joined the School of Medicine on May 1, 2025, after serving for seven years as chief of the Division of Nephrology at the University of Rochester in New York. As the new chair of the Department of Medicine, Le looks forward to facilitating innovation through interdisciplinary collaboration, expanding the school’s footprint in delivering high-quality care, and mentoring early-career physicians and researchers to become future leaders.

“I am excited for the opportunity to strengthen the Department of Medicine’s position as a leader in academic medicine,” says Le, “and to help shape its future in excellence in clinical care, research and education.”

Le brings almost 25 years of experience as a board-certified clinician in nephrology, caring for patients with hypertension and chronic kidney disease. She has received the American Society of Nephrology Distinguished Mentor Award, Castle Connolly Exceptional Women in Medicine and Top Doctors Awards, the National Kidney Foundation Research Partner Award, and has been elected a fellow of the American Heart Association.

In addition to her extensive experience and impressive accolades, Le brings a perspective rooted in healing and education, shaped by compassion during the trauma of war, and focused on impact and service to others.

An Outlook Rooted in Healing and Service

Born and raised in Vietnam, Le knew by age 6 that she wanted to be a doctor. “My father was going through residency in internal medicine, and one day he came home and I was very sick,” she recalls. “He listened to my lungs with a stethoscope and told me I had pneumonia.” They immediately went to urgent care. “As I got better, I felt my father had healed me,” she says. “So my goal in life was to become a physician, to be a healer like my father.”

Just a couple of years later came the chaos of the Vietnam War. “Every day, for months and months, we would hear bombings at home,” she says. Then her grandfather, who worked at the American Embassy as a translator, got a wire message: “If your family wants to leave, a van is coming.”

They had only a few hours to prepare. With her father having to pick up her older brother at school and her mother at work, the 8-year-old Le was tasked with packing for the family. “All I packed were a few clothing items and the books I knew my father treasured,” she says. “He had already instilled in me this idea that education was the most important thing you could do for your well-being.”

By nightfall, they were on a military plane, with hundreds of other people, headed to Guam. Days later was the fall of Saigon, and within a few months, Le found herself in Pennsylvania. “Various organizations and churches were sponsoring Vietnamese families,” she says, “and the Lutheran Church of Reformation in Washington, D.C., offered to sponsor my family.”

Le vividly remembers the night Laura Trexler, who served as a lieutenant in the Navy during World War II, picked them up at a bus stop in Pennsylvania. “It was pouring buckets, and we were soaking wet, waiting for the car to arrive,” she says. “My father was worried that nobody was going to come, and I could sense all of that stress.”

When Trexler finally arrived, she took the family to a Roy Rogers restaurant. Upon learning that Le’s brother had just turned 10, Trexler made an announcement. “The whole restaurant stood up and sang happy birthday to my brother, and they gave him a little cupcake with a candle,” says Le.

That warm welcome on a cold and fearful September night is emblematic of Le’s gratitude for the kindness her family experienced — the church members who provided housing and resources; the teacher who took Le and her brother under her wing when they didn’t speak a word of English; and Trexler, whose continued care led them to view her like a grandmother. “It was through that lens of people lending a hand or providing service in a very altruistic manner that has really shaped my journey as a physician and scientist.”

A Focus on Impact

Le maintained her goal of following in her father’s footsteps and earned her medical degree from George Washington University, graduating as class valedictorian. She completed her residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in nephrology at Duke University, where she stayed until 2009, before joining the University of Virginia, where she became vice chief of research and director of the Nephrology Clinical Research Center.

In 2018, she moved to the University of Rochester, and now, across the country in California, she is thrilled to start the next chapter of her medical journey. “When I visited UC Irvine, there was a palpable collective excitement about the tremendous growth across the enterprise, and I was immediately impressed with the collaborative and collegial culture imbued here.”

She looks forward to building on that culture and the mission of discovery, teaching and healing. “We can’t make advances without research, we can’t educate and heal without research; they’re all very much intertwined,” she says. “I think that is what has kept me in academic medicine.”

While she loves her one-on-one relationships with patients, she’s equally drawn to mentorship and discovery. “I have found it so rewarding to be a mentor to all of those who have come after me,” she says, noting that she finds inspiration in a proverb reflecting Buddhist principles: “In lighting a lamp for someone else, I brighten my own path.”

She similarly stresses the need to advance healthcare through research. “The impact of innovation and discoveries through research extends far beyond the patients we see in a clinic,” she says. “Through these discoveries, we can help patients on a global scale.”