WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR

'When Breath Becomes Air' is a heartbreaking book but beautifully written. The writer was a neurosurgeon, diagnosed having Stage 4 lung cancer which was inoperable, at the age of 36. This book which is published posthumously, reminds me that working as doctor is a calling. It's all about character, contribution and integrity. This is what I like to call 'Primary Greatness' in a 'physiological-spiritual' human. It's not like 'Secondary Greatness' that comes in the form of financial gains, positions or recognition that we always sought after. However, whatever happens, in the end, we should go back to our family at the four walls of our home. The author passed away in March 2015, left behind his physician wife and an eight months old daughter.

Here I share few quotes from the book which I found very interesting and meaningful :

''If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?''

"Cadavers reverse the polarity. The mannequins you pretend are real; the cadavers you pretend are fake." 

"Doctors invade the body in every way imaginable. They see people at their most vulnerable, their most sacred, their most private. They escort them into the world, and then back out. Seeing the body as matter and mechanism is the flip side to easing the most profound human suffering. By the same token, the most profound human suffering becomes a mere pedagogical tool."

"You can't reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving."

"As a resident, my highest deal was not saving lives - everyone dies eventually - but guiding a patient or family to an understanding of death or illness." 

"....by the end of medical school, most students tended to focus on 'lifestyle' specialties - those with more humane hours, higher salaries and lower pressures...Indeed this is how 99% of people select their jobs : pay, work environment, hours. But that's the point. Putting lifestyle first is how you find a job - not a calling."

And his last words were :

 I strongly recommend this book especially to my doctor friends to use it as a good tool to examine our life and do a moral reflections on how we treat our patients. Surely this book will be one of my favourite books for this year. 

-Dr Zaki Zamani bin Abd Rashid-