Paul Kalanithi | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 1, 1977 |
| Died | March 9, 2015 (aged 37) |
| Education | Stanford University (BA, MA) Darwin College, Cambridge (M.Phil) Yale Medical School (MD) |
| Occupations | |
| Spouse | Lucy Goddard |
| Children | 1 |
| Medical career | |
| Institutions | Stanford University School of Medicine |
Paul Sudhir Arul Kalanithi (April 1, 1977 – March 9, 2015) was an American neurosurgeon and writer. His book When Breath Becomes Air is a memoir about his life and illness with stage IV metastatic lung cancer. It was posthumously published by Random House in January 2016.[1] It was on The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller list for multiple weeks.[2]
Paul Kalanithi was born on April 1, 1977, and lived in Westchester, New York. He was born to a Christian family hailing from Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, India. Kalanithi had two brothers, Jeevan and Suman; Jeevan is a computer/robotics engineer and Suman is a neurologist. The family moved from Bronxville, New York, to Kingman, Arizona, when Kalanithi was 10. Kalanithi attended Kingman High School, where he graduated as valedictorian.[3][4]
Kalanithi attended Stanford University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in English literature and a Bachelor of Science in human biology in 2000.[4][5] After Stanford, he attended the University of Cambridge, where he studied at Darwin College and graduated with a Master of Philosophy in the History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine.[5] Although he initially considered pursuing a Ph.D. in English Literature, Kalanithi then attended the Yale School of Medicine, where he graduated in 2007 cum laude, winning the Dr. Louis H. Nahum Prize for his research on Tourette’s syndrome.[6] He was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society.[5]
At Yale, Kalanithi met fellow medical student Lucy Goddard, who would become his wife.[4]
After graduating from medical school, Kalanithi returned to Stanford to complete his residency training in neurosurgery and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience at Stanford University School of Medicine.[4][5]
In May 2013, Kalanithi was diagnosed with metastatic stage IV non-small-cell EGFR-positive lung cancer.[4][7] He died on March 9, 2015, aged 37.[4]
Kalanithi was married to Lucy (née Goddard), with whom he had a daughter in 2014, Elizabeth Acadia ("Cady").[5][8] Lucy is an associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and wrote the epilogue to When Breath Becomes Air.[9][10][11][12] She is the twin sister of Joanna Goddard of the blog A Cup of Jo.[13]
Although Kalanithi was raised in a devout Christian family, he turned away from the faith in his teens and twenties in favor of other ideas.[5] However, he retained "the central values of Christianity — sacrifice, redemption, forgiveness" and returned to Christianity later in his life. In his book, he writes that if he had been more religious in his youth, he would have become a pastor.[5]
He never smoked.[14]
