Lucy Kalanithi
@rocketgirlmd
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Clinical Associate Professor @StanfordMed . Still writing epilogue to When Breath Becomes Air ❤️ (she/her)
Stanford, CA
Joined December 2009
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Last Seen Profiles
Pinned Tweet
I used to think of life as a path — it’s going somewhere and you walk on it. Or life is a mountain and you’re going to climb it to the top. But sometimes it feels more like a series of moments 💗
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15 years today. Ditto.❤️
married paul kalanithi 9 yrs ago today. it was-always will be-one of the best things that's ever happened to me.
#LCSM
http://t.co/uz37BcYSuY
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14 years today. Ditto.❤️
married paul kalanithi 9 yrs ago today. it was-always will be-one of the best things that's ever happened to me.
#LCSM
http://t.co/uz37BcYSuY
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VP debate: “She looks like me, Mama!”
Tuesday morning: dress and a bindi for good luck ❤️
Our daughters are watching 😭🇺🇸
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Dr. Fauci is a national treasure
In a heated exchange, Dr. Fauci challenges Sen. Rand Paul's assertion that New York's current low positivity rate is attributable to "community immunity": "If you believe 22% is herd immunity, I believe you're alone in that"
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This morning:
Me: Cady, how did I get so lucky to have a kid like you?
C: You married Daddy, Mama.
😂😭❤️
When Breath Becomes Air – a young neurosurgeon examines the meaning of life as he faces his death
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Past and future collapsed in a moment: Cady remembering Paul in his mom’s ancestral village.😭 Happy new year 💖
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13 years today. Ditto.❤️
married paul kalanithi 9 yrs ago today. it was-always will be-one of the best things that's ever happened to me.
#LCSM
http://t.co/uz37BcYSuY
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“The best way through pain and loss and grief is through purpose.” -
@JoeBiden
#BidenHarris2020
❤️
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“A nation that isn’t broken but simply unfinished... if only we’re brave enough to be it” — Amanda Gorman 🇺🇸
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My daughter singing herself to sleep: "You don't have to be perfect; you just have to be brave" 😭💗💗💗
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married paul kalanithi 9 yrs ago today. it was-always will be-one of the best things that's ever happened to me.
#LCSM
http://t.co/uz37BcYSuY
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"Say it loud for the people in the back: health care is a human right... GoFundMe is a terrible substitute for smart congressional action."🙌🏽🙌🏿🙌🏾
@AdyBarkan
#BeAHero
❤️
“In this country, the wealthiest in history, we do not have an effective or fair or rational system for delivering that care... High costs, bad outcomes, mind-boggling bureaucracy, racial disparities, geographic inequities, and obscene profiteering.”
#MedicareForALL
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Spent some time Sunday hopping across tree stumps with these 7-year-olds. I got a little scared of shinning myself at one point and hesitated, to which one of them yelled, "USE ALL YOUR BRAVERY!!" which is really the best pep talk I've ever received. Sending it out to you💚
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This shirt! This question! Just arrived in a surprise package from my twin sis
@joannagoddard
🌸🌸
In case you need this today —
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"[A] revelation of how much our sense of self is tied up with our sense of potential and possibility — the selves we would like to become, those we work tirelessly toward becoming. Who are we, then, and what remains of 'us' when that possibility is suddenly snipped?" ❤️
When Breath Becomes Air – a young neurosurgeon examines the meaning of life as he faces his death
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12 years today. Ditto.❤️
married paul kalanithi 9 yrs ago today. it was-always will be-one of the best things that's ever happened to me.
#LCSM
http://t.co/uz37BcYSuY
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Last three paragraphs.
Dr. Andrew Thomas is a hand surgeon in Minneapolis. Years ago he was a med student
@ColumbiaPS
. Today he’s back as a volunteer in our OR ICU pods, sleeping in his old room at Bard Hall & working on the frontlines.
He wrote a letter to friends back home:
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In the comments: “That should be a doctor life goal: To practice the art of medicine in such a way that you are worthy of a patient eulogy.” 💔
@mccann_ka
Lost in the
#PittsburghShooting
: a physician, Jerry Rabinowitz, who cared for HIV patients from the early years of the epidemic. As someone who was on the wards when HIV/AIDS was still hugely stigmatized, I can say - these docs were rare and very special 💔
h/t
@rebeccamakkai
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#FathersDay
💙💙💙
a teenager asked me how to support his dying father. my first instinct: you're already doing it, just by existing.
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“Having a daughter does not make a man decent.” 👏🏼👏🏼
Right now,
@AOC
is speaking from the House floor about
@RepTedYoho
’s comments.
“When you do that to any woman, what Mr. Yoho did was give permission to other men to do that to his daughters.”
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"Behind the moonlight and the frost,
The excitement and the gratitude,
There stood how much our meeting owed
To other meetings, other loves."
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Cady watched this video for the first time yesterday. Actually, first 5 times. In a row. 😍😭😍😭
#whenbreathbecomesair
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Even after someone you love dies, their words can reshape themselves, reshape you.💗💗
#whenbreathbecomesair
#COVID
ー19
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Say it louder for the people in the back: physicians overall do not have a deficit in resilience
New in
@JAMANetworkOpen
: how resilient are physicians, and how does this compare with the general public?
#burnout
#Wellbeing
#MedTwitter
w/
@dyrbye
@ChristineSinsky
et al.
Resilience and Burnout Among Physicians and the General US Working Population
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“If doctors and nurses clocked out when their paid hours were finished, the effect on patients would be calamitous. Doctors and nurses know this, which is why they don’t shirk. The system knows it, too, and takes advantage.”
@danielleofri
+1
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Me neither 💗
We can all learn something from the profound love that existed between Lucy and Paul Kalanithi. I will never forget Paul's beautiful words to Lucy when she asked if having a baby would make dying more painful. He said, "Wouldn't that be great if it did?" What brave love.
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“Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again.” (Knost)
@PotomacFallsHS
, thank you for your amazing letters:
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I always worry I’m a bad mom until I see how good a mom Cady is with a doll 😭😭😍😍
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YES. Always.
Also deserving of the same compassion: the 48,000 people infected in America the same day as the president, many thousands of whom lack adequate protections, information and health care as a result of this administration’s inhumanity and recklessness.
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BREAKING: JOE BIDEN WINS
Joe Biden will be the 46th president of the United States, CNN projects, after a victory in Pennsylvania puts the Scranton-born Democrat over 270
#CNNElection
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It’s crazy how the solution to almost every problem is “please see this person as an actual person”
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This week’s episode of Gravity is about mortality & meaning, featuring the person whose words I’ll always turn to — Dr. Paul Kalanithi ❤️❤️✨ Listen:
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I really loved going back in time to make this episode — hope you’ll take a listen ✨
This week’s episode of Gravity is about mortality & meaning, featuring the person whose words I’ll always turn to — Dr. Paul Kalanithi ❤️❤️✨ Listen:
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When someone you love is dying, time collapses: past and present weave together, and you find yourselves in a room with no time and all the times at once.❤️ Mira Simone Etlin-Stein captures that:
@modernloss
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Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.💕
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1/ I write return-to-work letters every day for people recovering from COVID-19, citing
@CDCgov
, advocating for safe and expedient return to usual activities as soon as possible.
Should this person be at work yet? No
As of 8 p.m., the White House has declined to say whether President Trump was tested for coronavirus today, despite how he told Fox News last night that he would be. Trump's doctor has also not released an update on his health, as he has done every day this week.
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💕💕💕💕
“When Breath Becomes Air” is one of the most moving books I’ve ever read. I’m glad things turned out okay for
@rocketgirlmd
.
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Paperback cover mock-up from UK. Stayed on cutting room floor, but I love it... ❤️
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Say it louder for the people in the back: The revised
@CDCgov
guideline is “entirely bizarre.”
If you’ve been in contact with someone who has COVID-19, you absolutely need to get a test.
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Kindergarten day at symphony hall! Beethoven, Prokoviev, Rossini & then woah: Baby Shark. Bless you
@SFSymphony
for knowing your audience ❤️😂
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11th. xoxo
10th wedding anniversary tomorrow! missing paul. xoxo My Last Day as a Surgeon
@newyorker
@randomhouse
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a teenager asked me how to support his dying father. my first instinct: you're already doing it, just by existing.
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My commencement address
@UCIrvineSOM
(congrats!!): We can make this place beautiful.
#burnout
#meded
#hpm
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.
@StanfordMed
Palliative Care announces 3rd Annual Kalanithi Writing Award—for essays, poems, stories about illness—deadline 12/1, open to all.💗
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and men to raise children as if they don’t have children ❤️
Great quote on
@NPR
this afternoon - "we expect women to work as if they don't have children and raise children as if they don't work"
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😭✨
Breaking - UPS and FedEx trucks carrying the first U.S. shipment of coronavirus vaccine have left Pfizer’s facility near Kalamazoo, Michigan.
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*So* excited to share this trailer for Gravity, my new podcast with
@wmnmedia
— featuring interviews, reflections and poetry exploring meaning and beauty amidst life’s challenges. ✨
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Between eternity and time,
Your consciousness and me.❤️
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Cady (3): When you married Daddy, was I at your wedding?
Me: Nope! You weren’t even born yet.
Cady: Oh! I was dead.
❤️
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What national response? 💔
Covid is still out of control because our national response failed. Many, if not most, of the deaths in the US did not have to happen. There’s still time to improve our response.
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"The fight for gender equity is everyone's responsibility, and this means that feminism, too, is for everybody—for men and women, researchers, clinicians, funders, institutional leaders, and, yes, even for medical journals."
@TheLancet
#LancetWomen
: This week, we dedicate an issue to advancing
#women
in science, medicine, & global health. The collection highlights that
#genderequity
in science is not only a matter of justice and rights but is crucial to producing the best research
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Lucy Kalanithi discusses losing her husband to cancer and finding the right way to grieve.
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Oh, what beautiful phrasing: "Here lies what was mortal of Stephen Hawking."
The memorial stone has now been placed on top of
#StephenHawking
's grave in Westminster Abbey.
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“You think there are experts here? The world’s health care expert is the mom of a medically fragile child. That’s who knows everything that works and everything that doesn’t.”
@ASlavitt
#spotlighthealth
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“That you must accept change
before you die
but you will die anyway.
So you might as well live
and you might as well love.
You might as well love.
You might as well love.”
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.
@StanfordMedMuse
announces 5th Annual Kalanithi Writing Award—for essays, stories, poems about illness—deadline 12/1, open to all 💗
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Marcel (4): Why are all those flowers on the ground?
Cady (4): Those are for the deer to eat.
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“We build infrastructure like roads and bridges and communication systems so that people can work... It’s time to recognize that *childcare* is part of the basic infrastructure of this nation.”
@ewarren
One of
@JoeBiden
's plans that’s especially close to my heart is child care. Joe and
@KamalaHarris
will make high-quality child care affordable for every family, make preschool universal, and raise the wages for every child care worker.
#DemConvention
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When Breath Becomes Air has now officially sold over a million copies worldwide. How can a heart break and burst at the same time?
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See also: “I'm not good at this... yet. I can't do this... yet." Today I needed a pep talk, and there it was: Hold tight to the promise of yet.
#notjustforkids
💫💗💗💗
My daughter singing herself to sleep: "You don't have to be perfect; you just have to be brave" 😭💗💗💗
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“Within my family, we have broken the chains of patriarchy. Because of that, all of us — not only Malala and Toor Pekai, but my sons and I too — are free.”
#FathersDay
💞
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❤️🇺🇸❤️🇺🇸❤️🇺🇸❤️
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stunning.
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Can't wait to talk meaning, suffering and "being of use" at
@UCSDMedSchool
First Lecture❤️ New students: Welcome to medicine!! 🎉 Gratitude to these second-year leaders 🙏🏼
#whenbreathbecomesair
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“No one and nothing that you encounter in your life and career will be simply heroic or evil. Virtue is a capacity. It can always be lost or gained. That potential is why all of our lives are of equal worth.”
My commencement address at UCLA Med School yesterday in
@newyorker
, in which I tell the story of treating a prisoner and sorting out what we mean when we say we are all created equal.
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I am a physician and I call for a
#FreePalestine
and an end to the Israeli state’s apartheid.
(Pass it on
#medtwitter
)
@RepSpeier
@SenFeinstein
@AlexPadilla4CA
@POTUS
@VP
I am a physician and I call for a
#FreePalaestine
and an end to the Israeli state's apartheid. This is integral to my ethics, advocacy, and practice.
#MedTwitter
#GazaUnderAttack
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Best worst thing that ever happened to me.💕
By the way, "The Bright Hour" author Nancy Riggs's widower, John Duberstein, is now dating Lucy Kalanithi, who is the widow of "When Breath Becomes Air" author Paul Kalanithi. This was shared at a public event, so I am not breaking any confidences.
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"The last day of your life is not the sum of your life. The sum of your life is the sum of your life."❤️ xo
As Paul Kalanithi and
@rocketgirlmd
taught us, a person's last day isn't more important than the sum of their days. I hope we can remember that we talk about
#Bourdain
.
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“If I had one simple credo... it would be three words: ‘put people first.’” ❤️ Rooting for you, Dr.
@vivek_murthy
🇺🇸🇺🇸🙏🏼🙏🏼
With
@vivek_murthy
co-chairing
@Transition46
#COVID19
advisory board, I’m re-sharing our convo last spring
@cwclub
@JCCSF
@NPR
on loneliness & connection: ❤️
“Society looks different when people are at the center” 🇺🇸🙏🏼
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“If you leave with only one thing, it must be this: Choose to fight only righteous fights, because then... you will know that there is only option ahead of you.”
@ewarren
💗🙏🏼
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this is a moral outrage. i know i’m not the only one who made breakfast for my child today while silently, breathlessly apologizing to her.
call your senators, friends. 202-224-3121
#KavanaughHearings
@JeffFlake
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I really loved talking with activist
@AdyBarkan
about resistance, acceptance, love and legacy (and BABIES!). He and
@rachael_scar
have gorgeous, urgent things to say.
(Ady's new memoir: )
(my new podcast: )
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"I wrote, most of all, to tell you I have seen how good the world could be... I have created a self inside the suffering... This book does not have a happy ending. The happy part is there is no ending, because I'll... keep going."
Christine Blasey Ford: “Chanel Miller embodied courage long before writing her powerfully moving book, 'Know My Name.' As 'Emily Doe,' she courageously testified against the man who sexually assaulted her and read her victim-impact statement in court”
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“It is not a sign of weakness to ask for help... and paradoxically, it requires confidence.”
@DrHenryMarsh
😍
@StanfordMed
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