This letter from a reader in response to the Stanford Medicine essay is representative: “Dr. Kalanithi, I could not hold my tears while reading your story. It is a sad story, but at the same time it is an amazing story to share. These are the type of stories that stop us, and make us re-think life and the way that we are living it. Your story has touched me deeply in a very positive way.”

Kalanithi appeared to live by his words. After his diagnosis, he continued to joke, and laugh, enjoy the company of family, friends and colleagues, spend time appreciating nature and go wild at football games. He also helped raise money for lung cancer awareness. As top fundraiser (due, he said, to an overwhelming response from his friends, family and colleagues — including many from Stanford), he won the Chris Draft Family Foundation’s Lung Cancer Survivors Super Bowl Challenge, which landed him and family in Arizona for the 2015 Super Bowl.

Continuing to teach

In what proved to be his last days of life, Kalanithi worked on a teaching module with the director of Stanford’s palliative care education and training program, VJ Periyakoil, MD. “The module would teach the lessons he learned from being on both sides of the aisle — being a neurosurgeon at the top of his game to being a patient with cancer. We talked about how being the doctor is all about having control and wielding power, while being a patient is all about loss of control and feeling vulnerable,” said Periyakoil, a clinical associate professor of medicine.

His ‘dual citizenship’ as a doctor and as a seriously ill patient had taught him that respectful communication is the bedrock of all medicine.

“His ‘dual citizenship’ as a doctor and as a seriously ill patient had taught him that respectful communication is the bedrock of all medicine. We talked about the design of the module and how we could tailor it to make our medical students understand that the so-called soft skills of medicine are the truly hard skills to teach and to learn.”

As a chief resident, Kalanithi was a skilled mentor, said current chief resident Anand Veeravagu, MD. “He has a way of identifying your strengths and weaknesses to elevate your skills in unison. Gifted,” Veeravagu said, adding that Kalanithi was also a dedicated advocate for the human being inside each of his patients.

“As surgeons, we often become so entrenched in treating the disease that we forget who it is we are treating,” Veeravagu continued. “I remember when Paul returned to the neurosurgical service and started operating again back in late 2013. At that time, I was Paul’s shadow, learning and supporting however possible.

“We walked out of the operating room corridor together, toward the intensive care unit and I was complaining of being tired and worn out — and he looked at me and said, in his very satirical voice, ‘You know I have lung cancer, right?’ I looked at him with great surprise, as if such things shouldn’t be said out loud, and I’ll never forget what he said to me next. ‘Don’t forget what you do, and who you do it for. These are people who you can help, and you shouldn’t forget that.’ Paul is, to me, the hero of all heroes.”

Kalanithi is survived by his wife, Lucy Goddard Kalanithi, MD, FACP, a clinical instructor in medicine at Stanford; daughter, Cady; parents, Sujatha Kalanithi and A. Paul Kalanithi, MD; brothers, Suman Kalanithi, MD, and Jeevan Kalanithi; and Jeevan’s wife, Emily Kalanithi, JD. and their children, Eve and James.

A memorial service will take place at 2 p.m. March 31 at the Memorial Church on the Stanford campus. A reception will take place afterward at the Arrillaga Alumni Center at 326 Galvez St. (Those attending the memorial are advised to arrive before 1:30 p.m. to allow plenty of time for parking. The Galvez Lot at 270 Galvez St. has been reserved for those attending the service. Enter code 3380 at pay stations for complimentary all-day parking. Free shuttle buses marked “Kalanithi Memorial” will run from the Galvez Lot to the top of the Oval, near Memorial Church, beginning at 1 p.m. Following the service, return shuttles will run from the top of the Oval to the reception at the Alumni Center. The reception will continue until 5 p.m.)

Gifts in Kalanithi's memory may be sent to the Dr. Paul Kalanithi Memorial Fund at Stanford University, Development Services, P.O. Box 20466, Stanford, CA, 94309-0466. Gifts can also be made online; instructions are available at http://paulkalanithi.com/donate/. The fund will be used to recruit and support rural American students in the pursuit of a transformative education, a cause Kalanithi cared deeply about.