Summary Of When Breath Becomes Air

The book that I chose to read was When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. Paul Kalanithi was both a neurosurgeon and writer. He held degrees from Stanford, Cambridge, and Yale School of Medicine. During his residency as a neurosurgeon he had many achievements, performed a great deal of research, and had won several different awards. However, in the last few months of his residency, he began to have a lot of back pain and fatigue, and was soon diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Throughout this book you are able witness Kalanithi’s transition from being the doctor who is in control of the patient’s future, to being the patient who must rely on other doctors to take care of him, all the while trying to find the answer to his most challenging question:
A primary health care theme portrayed in this book is death and dying. As a neurosurgeon, Kalanithi deals with many patients who have suffered traumas way past the point of saving. It took him some time to develop the skills to know when is too far to go for a patient and also how to communicate the situation successfully to the family. At one point in the book, while Kalanithi was describing the importance of his communication, he wrote, “As a resident, my highest ideal was not saving lives--everyone dies eventually—but guiding a patient or family to an understanding of death or illness.” This relates back to our discussion in class about death and dying. We talked about how death is just a natural part of life, everything that lives will eventually die. Kalanithi explains how his communication of the patient’s state will forever stay in the family’s memory, so he must make sure that he expresses his knowledge on the patient’s condition to make sure that the family can come to peace with the idea of losing their loved one. Then again, later in the book, Kalanithi’s family must