Paul Kalanithi

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
Born	April 1, 1977
Died	March 9, 2015(2015-03-09) (aged 37)
Education	Stanford University (BA, MA) Darwin College, Cambridge (M.Phil) Yale Medical School (MD)
Occupations	Neurosurgeon Writer
Spouse	Lucy Goddard
Children	1
Medical career
Institutions	Stanford University School of Medicine

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.^[3][4]

Kalanithi attended Stanford University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts in English literature and a Bachelor of Arts 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]

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.^[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]

Personal life

Kalanithi married 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]} 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.^[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.^[5] In his book, he writes that if he had been more religious in his youth, he would have become a pastor.^[14]

He never smoked.^[15]

Bibliography

Non-fiction books

• When Breath Becomes Air^[2]

Essays

• "How Long Have I Got Left?" for The New York Times^[16]
• "Before I go: Time warps for a young surgeon with metastatic lung cancer" for Stanford Medicine Magazine^[17]
• Kalanithi, Paul (2016-01-11). "My Last Day as a Surgeon". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2016-02-22.
• "Terra Incognita: Remembering Sherwin Nuland" for The Paris Review^[18]

Scholarly articles

Only first-authored articles are listed below

• O'Shea DJ*, Kalanithi P*, Ferenczi EA*, Hsueh B, Chandrasekaran C, Goo W, Diester I, Ramakrishnan C, Kaufman MT, Ryu SI, Yeom KW, Deisseroth K, Shenoy KV. Scientific Reports. 2018 Apr 30;8(1):6775. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-24362-7.^[19] *Co-first author.
• Kalanithi, P. S.; Arrigo, R. T.; Tran, P; Gephart, M. H.; Shuer, L; Fisher, R; Boakye, M (2014). "Rehospitalization and emergency department use rates before and after vagus nerve stimulation for epilepsy: Use of state databases to provide longitudinal data across multiple clinical settings". Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface. 17 (1): 60–4, discussion 64–5. doi:10.1111/ner.12051. PMID 23551457. S2CID 46274667.
• Kalanithi, P. S.; Henderson, J. M. (2012). "Optogenetic Neuromodulation". Emerging Horizons in Neuromodulation – New Frontiers in Brain and Spine Stimulation. International Review of Neurobiology. Vol. 107. pp. 185–205. doi:10.1016/B978-0-12-404706-8.00010-3. ISBN 9780124047068. PMID 23206683.
• Kalanithi, P. A.; Arrigo, R; Boakye, M (2012). "Morbid obesity increases cost and complication rates in spinal arthrodesis". Spine. 37 (11): 982–8. doi:10.1097/BRS.0b013e31823bbeef. PMID 22037526. S2CID 15167313.
• Kalanithi, P; Schubert, R. D.; Lad, S. P.; Harris, O. A.; Boakye, M (2011). "Hospital costs, incidence, and inhospital mortality rates of traumatic subdural hematoma in the United States". Journal of Neurosurgery. 115 (5): 1013–8. doi:10.3171/2011.6.JNS101989. PMID 21819196.
• Kalanithi PS, Patil CG, Boakye M (2009). "National complication rates and disposition after posterior lumbar fusion for acquired spondylolisthesis". Spine. 34 (18): 1963–9. doi:10.1097/BRS.0b013e3181ae2243. PMID 19652635. S2CID 42579192.
• Kalanithi, P. S.; Zheng, W; Kataoka, Y; Difiglia, M; Grantz, H; Saper, C. B.; Schwartz, M. L.; Leckman, J. F.; Vaccarino, F. M. (2005). "Altered parvalbumin-positive neuron distribution in basal ganglia of individuals with Tourette syndrome". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 102 (37): 13307–12. Bibcode:2005PNAS..10213307K. doi:10.1073/pnas.0502624102. PMC 1201574. PMID 16131542. father. name.