In a society that places a premium on prolonging life, celebrating the end of life is sometimes overlooked.
Lindsay Brant, BSN, RN, CCRN, EOLD, MFA, is on a mission to change that.
Brant started her work as a critical care nurse in the cardiothoracic ICU at UCLA Health in 2013. Since then, her journey has taken her from the bedside of the critically ill to a mountain retreat in New Mexico to remote high-altitude villages in the Himalayas and back again.
Along the way, she’s discovered something she is passionate about sharing: Death can be a beautiful experience, if we let it.
“It’s that constant question of how can end of life be as peaceful and meaningful as possible for the patient and their loved ones,” Brant says.
End-of-life initiatives
Brant’s understanding that death is a natural part of the life process empowers her to help patients express their thoughts and wishes at the end of life. As a death doula in her unit, she counsels patients and their families to consider their end-of-life goals and helps them achieve them with care, compassion and intention.
As a member of the 3 Wishes team at UCLA Health, Brant works with clinical staff to honor patients who are near death and to create ways to celebrate the individual in the most meaningful way possible. This has included delivering personalized photos, family keepsakes or favorite music to the patient and family at the bedside, and even holding impromptu wedding ceremonies.
New unit-based committee
In 2023, Brant launched a committee centered on providing compassionate palliative care in her unit. Called “Community,” the group of about 12 nurses meets monthly to discuss approaches they can implement.
One idea they’ve put into practice is a task sheet to streamline logistical end-of-life processes so any nurse can jump in, allowing the primary nurse to focus on the patient’s family.
Others on the committee are dedicated to conducting evidence-based research through surveys with patients and family members. Their work has been submitted for presentation at the American Association of Critical Care Nurses’ 2025 National Teaching Institute and Critical Care Exposition in New Orleans.
The committee recently initiated Moment of Silence, during which the entire caregiving team is assembled after a patient passes to silently honor the patient and family and the care that was provided. Also known as the medical Pause, the practice was inspired by educator Jonathan Bartels, RN, and has been adopted at health care systems throughout the nation.
“It’s been extraordinary,” Brant says. “It's been so meaningful, especially for providers that don't normally have this opportunity to reflect. It really initiates closure for the team as well as the family.”
Practicing integrative therapies
Throughout her career, Brant has advocated for healing patients through nontraditional means. In 2015, she was selected as one of the first clinicians at UCLA Health to participate in the Urban Zen Integrative Therapy program, brought to UCLA by fashion designer Donna Karan through her Urban Zen Foundation.
During the 40-hour training, Brant learned nonpharmaceutical modalities and Eastern healing techniques – including yoga, Reiki, essential oil therapy and breath awareness – that can help alleviate symptoms such as nausea, anxiety, sleeplessness and pain.
Brant often employs these techniques when caring for post-surgical patients in her unit. For example, if a patient has received a lung transplant and is anxious about their new relationship with breathing, she will use breath awareness, body positioning and body scanning to calm their nervous system.
She has seen "astounding” responses, she says, including slowing of respiratory and heart rates and lowering of blood pressure.
“The patient’s whole demeanor changes,” she adds.
Brant says the Urban Zen Integrative Therapy program shaped the trajectory of her career as a nurse.
“It profoundly changed my practice in that I picked up so many tools, not only to care for patients but also for my own self-care and wellness,” she says. “It grounded me in a whole new knowledge base that I carry with me to this day.”
High-altitude healing
Brant traces her passion for palliative care to the book “Being with Dying,” by Roshi Joan Halifax, which was required reading for the Urban Zen program. Her commitment to caring for the most vulnerable led her to an eight-day retreat at Halifax’s Upaya Zen Center, a Zen Buddhist practice, service and training center in Santa Fe, N.M.
There, she learned about Nomads Clinic, an annual pilgrimage to deliver medical and dental care and health education to people in the remote Humla and Dolpo regions on the border of Tibet and Nepal.
Launched by Halifax in 1980, the clinic hosts more than 100 Nepalis and Westerners who serve four weeks for each mission, walking or riding horseback an average of 180 miles across terrain ranging in altitude from 7,600 to 18,000 feet, caring for patients at clinics set up along the route.
Brant participated in Nomads Clinic in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2024. It was an extraordinary opportunity, she says, one that illuminated how lives can be changed with the most minimal means in one of the most remote areas of the world.
Effects spread exponentially
One experience that stands out occurred when the Nomads team entered a town to start setting up a clinic, Brant recalls. The head monk, whom Brant described as a scruffy, unshaven man with a foul disposition, yelled and kicked one of the mules carrying the medical gear.
“This was highly unconventional behavior,” she says. “We could see and feel his anger was a dark cloud storming over the people and animals in the town.”
The following day, the reason for the man’s anger became apparent while in the dentist’s chair.
“As soon as he opened his mouth, we realized what was wrong – he was in incredible pain. His mouth was filled with abscesses and rotten teeth,” Brant says.
The dentist pulled four teeth, drained the abscesses and treated him with antibiotics and pain medication. Later that evening, the monk came to the team’s table to express his gratitude, clean-shaven and wearing a giant smile.
“I turned to the dentist and said, ‘You saved the town!’ ” Brant recalls. “It was a great example of how the effects of a little bit of care could extend far beyond just the recipient.”
Award recognition
Brant is also moving mountains closer to home; in 2023 she was one of 30 nurses – 10 from UCLA Heath – to be celebrated in the first year of the Simms/Mann Family Foundation’s Off the Chart program, which recognizes nursing excellence.
By the program’s design, recipients embody “a bias toward action, capacity for self-direction, originality and creative instincts, courageous and bold thinking, and the potential to achieve even more.”
“I felt like my heart just exploded,” she says about the honor. “I had a deep sense of gratitude for the acknowledgment and also pride in that the way that I am a nurse was being acknowledged. … I am very outspoken as an advocate, and the fact that it was celebrated reflects beautifully on my institution. It makes me feel like I’m in the right place.”
Her advice to new nurses? “To never lose your voice and always maintain the sense of strong advocacy – for yourself and your patients.”
