Paul Kalanithi Analysis

Spending nearly a decade being a doctor treating patients and helping them cope with death, Paul Kalanithi, a 36-year-old neurosurgeon, did not know what to do when he became the patient facing death. Nearing the end of his residency as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi had the rest of his life mapped out, but that was quickly wiped away once he and his wife, Lucy, learned of Paul’s stage 4 lung cancer. Suddenly his life as a physician was gone and his new life as a patient began. He no longer attended to the ill but rather was attended to. A third of his life he was surrounded by the possibility of death and helping his patients come to terms with it, but it was his own ticking clock that finally allowed him access into what his patients were …show more content…
Spending his final days living rather than waiting for death, Paul demonstrates aspects of conscience, human dignity and Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical theory. Throughout the book Paul Kalanithi displays aspects of conscience. The moral orientation of the importance of having direction in human life contributes to the formation of the human identity. Paul’s identity is defined by many things including the values that give his life direction. (CCCB 44). Before Paul’s diagnosis, his direction and plan for his life included a detailed 40-year plan. He planned to spend the first 20 years of his career as a neurosurgeon, and the last 20 years as a writer meanwhile spending time with his wife and hypothetical children. However, his diagnosis told him his inevitable death would occur a lot sooner that he had initially expected, throwing his plan up in the air and forcing Paul to discover what was most important to him (Kalanithi 136). His identity is framed by his commitments and with the numerous possibilities of how he chooses to live the remainder of his life, the commitment he chooses will inevitably influence his