A Rough Residency
Kalanithi worked as much as this many hours per week as a resident, even though regulations officially capped his hours at 88.
What is 100?
This is the name of Paul's renowned oncologist.
Who is Emma?
This is Paul's family nickname, which his father calls him.
What is Pubby?
This word first appeared in English about 1000 years ago, denoting some combination of confidence and desire.
What is hope?
You can't ever reach perfection, but you can believe in a ____ toward which you are ceaselessly striving.
What is "asymptote"?
Paul went into the hospital at this time every morning.
What is six A.M.?
This is the name of the curve that Paul really wants his oncologist to tell him so that he knows about how long he has left to live.
What is the Kaplan-Meier curve?
This is the name of Paul's brother, who visited his bedside after his cancer diagnosis.
What is Jeevan?
Paul thinks, "I can't go on," then immediately internally responds with this three word phrase from Samuel Beckett.
What is "I'll go on"?
Paul felt a "pang of ____" with his oncologist when she dealt with him how he would deal with patients.
What is "kinship"?
In the hardest moments as a resident, Paul acted as "death's ___," not its "enemy."
What is "ambassador"?
Paul asks this question to his doctor, which causes Lucy to laugh and the oncologist to roll her eyes.
What is "Can I start smoking?"
This is Lucy and Paul's favorite biking spot.
Where is Cañada Road?
Darwin and Nietzsche agreed that this is the defining characteristic of the organism.
What is striving?
"When there's no place for the scalpel, ____ are the surgeon's only tool."
What are "words"?
After failing to save a man in a motorcycle accident, Paul returns back into the trauma bay to retrieve these two things.
What are a Diet Coke and an ice cream sandwich?
Paul says, "It occurred to me that my relationship with statistics changed as soon as __ ____ ___"
What is "I became one"?
Paul's dad orders lobster and steak for a patient but smiles and warns her "it may look more like" this.
What is a turkey sandwich?
Paul worries he is becoming this author's stereotype of a doctor, preoccupied with empty formalism.
Who is Tolstoy?
Kalanithi says, "I resolved to treat all my ___ as ___, and not vice versa" after Ms. Harvey's death
What is "paperwork" as "patients"?
The author uses this (slightly crass) metaphor to describe levels of head trauma to his co-resident Jeff.
What is naming the states they could govern?
This is the little white pill that Paul can take, rather than chemo, because he has the EGFR mutation.
What is Tarceva?
Paul's mother experienced this neurological condition after learning her father died, and continued to experience it until she returned home to attend his funeral.
What are psychogenic seizures?
Paul took "meager solace in knowing" that these two author-surgeons "had confessed to doing worse, and [he] swore to do better."
Who are William Carlos Williams and Richard Selzer?
Paul thought this two word phrase while eating an ice cream sandwich as a "family said its last goodbyes" in the adjacent room.
What is "pretty tasty"?