Paul Kalanithi was a neurosurgeon and memoir author, best known for his work "When Breath Becomes Air." He was raised in Kingman, Arizona, and went on to attend Stanford University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in English Literature and a master's degree in Human Biology. Kalanithi also earned a Philosophy of Medicine and Science from the University of Cambridge and a master's degree in History from Cambridge before attending medical school.\n \nKalanithi's medical education included graduating from the Yale School of Medicine in 2007, where he was invited to join the Omega Alpha medical society and won the Lewis H Nahum Prize for outstanding research. He decided to do his neurosurgery residency at Stanford, where he wanted to complete his post-doctoral fellowship. During his time at Stanford, he authored more than twenty articles that were published in scientific journals and received the highest award awarded to resident researchers by the American Academy of Neurological Surgery.
In addition to his medical career, Kalanithi was also a writer. His reflections on doctoring and illness, inspired by his own experience being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in 2013, were published in various media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Paris Review Daily. He completed his neurosurgery residency in 2014 and worked on "When Breath Becomes Air" until his death in March 2015. The book, published posthumously, is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient. Kalanithi is survived by his wife Lucy and their daughter Cady.