Recommended by Isaac Wighton
On the verge of completing a decade’s worth of neurological training, Paul Kalanithi had examined hundreds of CT scans. This one was especially bad: 'the lungs were matted with innumerable tumours, the spine deformed, a full lobe of the liver obliterated. Cancer, widely disseminated.' What made it worse was that this was not a patient’s scan. It was his own.
At 36, Kalanithi had led a glittering academic career. Holding degrees in English literature, human biology and history and philosophy of medicine, graduating from Yale School of Medicine, winning the coveted American Academy of Neurological Surgery's highest award for research and very nearly completing years of training in Neurosurgery, the future was most definitely bright for Paul. This made the discovery that he had type IV inoperable lung cancer even more painful.
