The World's Best Book Summaries
What are some of the qualities of a good doctor? How can doctors achieve good relationships with patients, get results, and learn how to be a good doctor? Through his experiences in medical school and his love of literature, Dr. Paul Kalanithi spent his life searching for meaning and connectedness. He formed philosophies about how the qualities of a good doctor, and worked on applying and developing further even when he was diagnosed with lung cancer so he could have the characteristics of a great doctor.
Do you wonder about the meaning of life, and want to know how to maximize living in the now and find your purpose? Paul Kalanithi’s book, When Breath Becomes Air, is written in two parts. In this touching memoir, Paul Kalanithi, a doctor, deals with a terminal cancer diagnosis. As a person who was meant to be saving livese, he’s now faced with losing his own. The When Breath Becomes Air themes cover these matters of life and death.
Have you ever wondered: what is medical school like? Are there first-person perspectives that capture the pressures and high stakes learning environments? Paul Kalanithi’s memoir details his journey through medical school, through his cancer diagnosis. In When Breath Becomes Air, Paul discusses his journey to becoming a doctor, including a firsthand answer to the question, what is medical school like?
What are books published posthumously, and what kind of books are usually published in this way? Books published posthumously are books that are published after the author has died. Though they are commonly about the experience of the end of life and thoughts on dying, that is not always the case. Books published posthumously can range in genre and subject matter. When Breath Becomes Air is one such book. It’s a memoir that details Dr. Paul Kalanithi’s experience with cancer.
What is the book When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi about? How does it address life, death, and dying? Paul Kalanithi’s memoir is about his personal journey of discovery as much as it is a dissertation on what it means to live and die. Paul’s book about dying is unique because it is also a book about doctors; but in it, he shows that he believed that human relationships and experiences gave life purpose and depth, and he strove to celebrate both in his life and the life of his patients. The legacy Paul left behind exemplifies the strength
What is the end of life cancer experience like? No one can really say for sure- every person is different. But Paul Kalanithi hoped to say something in his final days. Paul Kalanithi worked on his memoir, When Breath Becomes Air for as long as he could while battling an end of life cancer diagnosis. When Paul eventually passed away, his wife, Lucy, completed his manuscript. She claims that Paul’s legacy, like his manuscript, was unfinished, but they both hoped he could continue to help people even after the end of his life from cancer.
What is the book When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, and what is it about? When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi recounts the life of Dr. Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon diagnosed with lung cancer during his last year of residency. With elegant and beautiful prose befitting a novelist more than a doctor, the When Breath Becomes Air author guides readers through his life before and after his diagnosis, a life marked by a search for understanding life, death, and meaning.
Paul Kalanithi studied both biology and literature, and felt deeply that language was the path to connectivity. Paul’s specific approach to the doctor-patient relationship was one where he tried to understand the person as a whole, and their identity. He called this method human relationality. He applied human relationality as a doctor, and experienced it as a patient with Dr. Emma Hayward. Below, Paul explains how he came back to his view on the doctor-patient relationship after years of overlooking it in favor of statistics and numbers, and how holding onto this philosophy later helped him as a patient.
What is an EGFR mutation of lung cancer? How does it affect diagnosis and treatment? Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with lung cancer May 2013. A Stanford educated neurosurgeon, Paul understood a lot of the medical technicalities in his diagnosis. During his diagnosis, Paul finds out he has what’s called an EGFR mutation of lung cancer. The EGFR mutation of lung cancer can increase life expectancy, and Paul found that this bit of good news was enough to give him some hope for the future.