Indian American physician and author to receive National Humanities Medal

An Indian American Stanford physician will be awarded a National Humanities Medal for his efforts to emphasize empathy in medicine, the White House announced Thursday.

Dr. Abraham Verghese – a well-known author and professor at the Stanford School of Medicine – will receive the prestigious medal from President Barack Obama on Sept. 22 during a live-streamed ceremony.

Verghese will be recognized “for reminding us that the patient is the center of the medical enterprise. His range of proficiency embodies the diversity of the humanities; from his efforts to emphasize empathy in medicine, to his imaginative renderings of the human drama,” according to the White House.

“I am humbled and excited by this honor,” Verghese said in a statement through Stanford. “The names of previous recipients include writers I most admire. It’s a wonderful affirmation of a path that in the early years I wasn’t sure was the right path, even though it was one I felt compelled to follow.”

Verghese, who has numerous critically-acclaimed and best-selling publications, wrote his first book “My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story” in 1995 about the experiences, connections and insights he gathered while caring for terminal AIDS patients during his early years as a young doctor. He told Stanford that interest in the human experience of caring for the ill is every bit as important to medicine as having knowledge of functioning organs.

“This is a special honor for a physician,” said Lloyd Minor, dean of Stanford’s School of Medicine. “Through his writings and his work as a physician, Abraham has worked to battle what he has seen as a lack of humanism in modern medicine. The courage to follow his own path and the compassion he has brought to his work has made the world a better place.”

According to the National Endowment for the Humanities, the group that manages the nomination process, the National Humanities Medal was inaugurated in 1997 to honor those who have deepened America’s understanding of the human experience, literature, philosophy and other humanities subjects. As many as 12 awards are handed out each year.