When Breath Becomes Air: Pulitzer Prize Finalist

This brief memoir is interposed between a foreword by Abraham Verghese, the brilliant author of “Cutting for Stone” and an epilogue by author’s wife, Lucy Kalanithi. It is a beautifully, heartrending, deeply philosophical piece by an accomplished young man who dedicated heart and mind to his work and study in neurosurgery. He discovers that he has terminal lung cancer at the age of 36, just before completing his grueling neurosurgical residency and embarking on the career he has worked so hard to attain. The book is very thoughtful and reflective in nature, especially upon the meaning of life. It made me wonder if the author was truly always so interested in finding the meaning of life, or if only when told of this terminal diagnosis, that reflection back on his life made this search so apparent. As one nears death, what is most important, becomes glaringly more obvious, and Paul Kalanithi describes this so well.Abraham Verghese speaks in the foreword of how he had met Paul in person several times before his death, but it was not until he read his book that he felt he really knew him. I too, felt like I got to know Paul through this book. He is very open and honest about himself, his sickness, his relationships, and struggles and triumphs throughout the process of dealing with cancer.I find it interesting that Paul did not always think he wanted to be a physician, but rather thought he might be a writer. He may not have realized his full potential as neurosurgeon and professor, but he surely achieved his goal to be a writer. He has left behind a beautiful book that will be read for many years to come. It will be of great interest to those with life-threatening disease, their family members, and really everyone, because we will all be in those shoes at some point. He has also left behind a wonderful gift of himself to his daughter. She will not remember her time with him, but she will be able to know him through this book and well as through the memories that I’m sure his close relations will share with her. Aside from writing and even delving back into neurosurgery residency at one point, he spent the last years of his life following his diagnosis, building closer bonds with his family, and the love there was overflowing.Aside from being an important read for anyone facing a life-threatening illness themselves or loving someone who is, I think it is a very important read for all medical professionals. It puts a face behind a patient, who is clearly able to articulate the thoughts and feelings of being a patient in our medical system. It emphasizes and highlights the importance of the physician-patient relationship.I gave this book 5 stars for it’s thought provoking, beautiful prose, as well as for writing it’s way through a death with utmost dignity. He strengthens his belief systems, forges stronger relationships with family and loved ones, and finds greater meaning in life once he is given this terminal diagnosis.For discussion questions, please visit book-chatter.com

This is a life-changing story. It is heartbreaking but meaningful. It is written by a physician that is a brilliant writer. I respect when someone who excels in science can transition into the arts/literature so well. This book is a must read! So many important life lessons are divulged.

Paul offers a unique and insightful perspective as both doctor and patient. The book is an emotional read that grapples with the rollercoaster of cancer in real time. I enjoyed learning about him and his story.

I do not have the words to do this book justice. the loss of someone like Paul so young is so hard for me to understand. He served humanity so well as a physician and author. Paul, however, accepted his terminal illness and processed it with such grace, dignity and determination to continue to live well. His writing style is beautiful, thoughtful and evocative and makes me wish I could have known him. I didn't care for the long epilogue by his wife so my 5 star rating ignores that. A nice one page wrap up would have been more appropriate and she could save the rest to perhaps write a book of her own.

Reflections on “When Breath Becomes air” by Paul KalanthiniBy Bob SteeleDecember 25, 2016I have read many books in my lifetime, likely several thousand, but this is one of the rare ones. It is a profound, beautifully written book that reached out and touched me on many levels. It triggered deep reflection about health and disease, living and dying, wisdom and folly.This is a sad story, a memoir written by a brilliant, young neurosurgeon who loses his fight with lung cancer. And yet I am so glad I read it and hope that my family and friends will do so. Paul Kalanithi deals with death, looking at its many facets, but never in a morbid or clinical way.Paul spent a third of his life in his quest to become a neurosurgeon. The book reflects some of the many lessons learned in that journey. It includes a helpful treatise on doctor-patient relationships that should be required reading for doctors, nurses, and caretakers for people who face terminal cancer/illness diagnosis.There are literally dozens of quotations that I want to share from this remarkable journey of self-growth as he transitioned from doctor to patient. However, I am resigned to citing these few.* * * * *I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything.I had started in this career, in part, to pursue death: to grasp it, uncloak it, and see it eye-to-eye, unblinking. Neurosurgery attracted me as much for its intertwining of brain and consciousness as for its intertwining of life and death.Amid the tragedies and failures, I feared I was losing sight of the singular importance of human relationships, not between patients and their families but between doctor and patient. Technical excellence was not enough…. When there's no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon's only tool.In those moments, I acted not, as I most often did, as death's enemy, but as its ambassador.A tureen of tragedy was best allotted by the spoonful.How little do doctors understand the hells through which we put patients.You can't ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.Doctors, it turns out, need hope, too.And finally for his infant daughter, Cady:When you come to one of the many moments in life where you must give an account for yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.* * * * *More poignant words, I have yet to read. A sense of sadness fell over me as I reread the book to collect my thoughts and considered how many more lives he could have saved, how many more he could have touched with his new-found sense of empathy and wisdom. But then I realized that through this book he can reach out and touch the lives of so many more than he could have done as one of the best doctors. He has yet much to share and teach.Thank you, Paul.