Prof. Vinh-Kim Nguyen

Profile 

Vinh-Kim Nguyen is a medical anthropologist and family physician from Montréal, Canada, who also practises in the Canadian Arctic. He has worked in acute care settings in hospitals in Geneva, Switzerland, and Paris, France, and during humanitarian crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Guinea (during Ebola outbreaks) and in Yemen (during the ongoing conflict). He led the development and opening of COVID-19 treatment units in hospitals in Geneva, Switzerland, and Montréal, Canada, in 2020. As a result he has a broad experience in pandemic management.

Prof. Nguyen’s award-winning first book examines the introduction of antiretroviral therapy in West Africa and his second book The Republic of Therapy: Triage and Sovereignty in West Africa's Time of AIDS, co-authored with Margaret Lock, is a landmark treatise on the anthropology of biomedicine.

He has recently led research projects examining how conflict drives antimicrobial resistance and, most recently, the financialisation of pharmaceuticals. Trained in psychedelic therapy, his latest research examines the “psychedelic renaissance” in Switzerland and beyond. 

Theme

• Global Health
• Diplomacy

Geographical Area

• Africa, Eastern
• Africa, Middle
• Africa, Western
• Middle East
• Oceania