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Abraham Verghese

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Born

in Adis Ababa, Ethiopia

Website

http://www.abrahamverghese.org

Genre

Literature & Fiction

Member Since

November 2009

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Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP, is Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine.

Born of Indian parents who were teachers in Ethiopia, he grew up near Addis Ababa and began his medical training there. When Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed, he completed his training at Madras Medical College and went to the United States for his residency as one of many foreign medical graduates. Like many others, he found only the less popular hospitals and communities open to him, an experience he described in one of his early New Yorker articles, The Cowpath to America.

From Johnson City, Tennessee, where he was a resident from 1980 to 1983, he Abraham Verghese, MD, MACP, is Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine.

Born of Indian parents who were teachers in Ethiopia, he grew up near Addis Ababa and began his medical training there. When Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed, he completed his training at Madras Medical College and went to the United States for his residency as one of many foreign medical graduates. Like many others, he found only the less popular hospitals and communities open to him, an experience he described in one of his early New Yorker articles, The Cowpath to America.

From Johnson City, Tennessee, where he was a resident from 1980 to 1983, he did his fellowship at Boston University School of Medicine, working at Boston City Hospital for two years. It was here that he first saw the early signs of the HIV epidemic and later, when he returned to Johnson City as an assistant professor of medicine, he saw the second epidemic, rural AIDS, and his life took the turn for which he is most well known ? his caring for numerous AIDS patients in an era when little could be done and helping them through their early and painful deaths was often the most a physician could do.

His work with terminal patients and the insights he gained from the deep relationships he formed and the suffering he saw were intensely transformative; they became the basis for his first book, My Own Country : A Doctor's Story, written later during his years in El Paso, Texas. Such was his interest in writing that he decided to take some time away from medicine to study at the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1991. Since then, his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Texas Monthly, Atlantic, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Granta, Forbes.com, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

Following Iowa, he became professor of medicine and chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center in El Paso, Texas, where he lived for the next 11 years. In addition to writing his first book, which was one of five chosen as Best Book of the Year by Time magazine and later made into a Mira Nair movie, he also wrote a second best-selling book, The Tennis Partner : A Story of Friendship and Loss, about his friend and tennis partner?s struggle with addiction. This was a New York Times' Notable Book. ...more

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Abraham Verghese’s books

Average rating: 4.37 · 1,037,616 ratings · 80,465 reviews · 15 distinct works • Similar authors

	When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese (Goodreads Author) (Foreword) 4.39 avg rating — 620,808 ratings — published 2016 — 149 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cutting for Stone 4.31 avg rating — 372,176 ratings — published 2009 — 95 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Covenant of Water 4.53 avg rating — 63,036 ratings — published 2023 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	My Own Country: A Doctor's Story 4.21 avg rating — 11,635 ratings — published 1994 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Tennis Partner 3.93 avg rating — 7,237 ratings — published 1998 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology by Randy-Michael Testa (Editor), Robert Coles (Editor), Penny Armstrong 3.99 avg rating — 126 ratings — published 2002 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Kerala Kitchen, Expanded Edition: Recipes and Recollections from the Syrian Christians of South India by Lathika George, Abraham Verghese (Goodreads Author) (Foreword) 3.68 avg rating — 97 ratings — published 2008 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Silence Kills: Speaking Out and Saving Lives by Lee Gutkind (Editor), Abraham Verghese (Goodreads Author) (Introduction), Karen Wolk Feinstein (Foreword) 3.50 avg rating — 42 ratings — published 2007 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Short Stories 3.50 avg rating — 14 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	3 Books! Variety of Authors! 1) Cutting for Stone 2) The Lazarus Trap 3) The Silent Girls by Abraham Verghese (Goodreads Author), Davis Bunn (Goodreads Author), Eric Rickstad (Goodreads Author) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Abraham Verghese is currently reading

Proficient Motorcycling: The Ultimate Guide to Riding Well

by David L. Hough

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Jun 28, 2021 01:16AM

Quotes by Abraham Verghese (?)

“The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

tags: inspirational

497 likes

“Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

tags: cutting-for-stone-my-abyssinia

397 likes

“You live it forward, but understand it backward.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

tags: life

271 likes

See all Abraham Verghese's quotes »

Polls

What will be our September 2017 Open Pick?

Remember, if you vote for a book and it wins, you are implicitly promising to read the book and participate in the discussion. The poll will be open through July 31st. (Note: You can change your vote at any time prior to the closing of the poll.) Discussion will begin September 1st.

Sophie and the Sibyl: A Victorian Romance by Patricia Duncker

7 votes, 35.0%

The Orenda by Joseph Boyden

5 votes, 25.0%

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

4 votes, 20.0%

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski

3 votes, 15.0%

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

1 vote, 5.0%

The Water Theatre by Lindsay Clarke

0 votes, 0.0%