Paul Kalanithi

Paul Sudhir Arul Kalanithi (April 1, 1977 – March 9, 2015) was an American neurosurgeon, neuroscientist, 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. It was on The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller list for multiple weeks.

Early life and education

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.

Kalanithi attended Stanford University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in human biology and a Master of Arts in English literature in 2000. 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. 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. He was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha national medical honor society.

At Yale, Kalanithi met fellow medical student Lucy Goddard, who would become his wife.

Career

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.

In May 2013, Kalanithi was diagnosed with metastatic stage IV non-small-cell EGFR-positive lung cancer. He died on March 9, 2015, aged 37.

Personal life

Kalanithi married Lucy (née Goddard), with whom he had a daughter in 2014, Elizabeth Acadia ("Cady"). Lucy is an associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine and wrote the epilogue to When Breath Becomes Air. Lucy is the twin sister of Joanna Goddard of the blog A Cup of Jo. Lucy has been in a relationship with North Carolina lawyer John Duberstein since Kalanithi's death. Duberstein's wife Nina Riggs was a poet who wrote a memoir as she succumbed to cancer. Lucy had been in touch with Nina and even wrote a blurb for Nina's book; after Nina's death John reached out to Lucy for advice on how to grieve.

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. 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.

Kalanithi never smoked.