Paul Kalanithi's memoir of training as a neurosurgeon, being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer at 36, and deciding how to live in the time left. For readers who want a doctor's account of facing death.
Author · 1 summary
Paul Kalanithi
American neurosurgeon and writer
- Born
- 1 April 1977
- Died
- 9 March 2015 (aged 37)
- Birthplace
- Bronxville, New York, United States
- Nationality
- American
- Occupation
- Neurosurgeon, Writer
- Known for
- When Breath Becomes Air, his memoir of facing death as a young neurosurgeon
- Wikipedia
- Read the article
About Paul Kalanithi
Paul Kalanithi was born in Bronxville, New York, to parents who had come from India. When he was ten, the family moved to Kingman, Arizona. At Stanford he studied English literature and human biology, then took a master's degree in the history and philosophy of science and medicine at Cambridge. He asked how the brain gives rise to meaning, and decided that medicine was the closest he could get to the answer.
He earned his medical degree at Yale and returned to Stanford for residency in neurosurgery. In 2013, near the end of his training, he learned he had stage IV lung cancer. He had never smoked. He kept operating for as long as he could, and he and his wife, Lucy, had a daughter in 2014.
In his last year he wrote When Breath Becomes Air. The book follows his move from literature to surgery and then from doctor to patient. It asks what makes a life worth living when time is short. Kalanithi died in March 2015, at 37. Lucy finished the book with an epilogue, and it appeared in 2016.
Books by Paul Kalanithi
New books, occasionally