Abraham C. Verghese

Abraham Verghese is the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor of Medicine at Stanford School of Medicine. He is also a best-selling author and a physician known for researching and advocating for the value of bedside skills and physical diagnosis – skills he sees as waning in an era of increasingly sophisticated medical technology. He was instrumental in developing "The Stanford 25" initiative, which is designed to showcase and teach 25 fundamental physical exam skills and their diagnostic benefits to interns. Verghese has written extensively about his experiences as a physician and is the author of My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of Aids and The Tennis Partner: A Story of Friendship and Loss. His novel Cutting for Stone was on The New York Times Best Seller list for two years. His latest award-winning book, The Covenant of Water, was an instant New York Times Best seller, Oprah’s Book Club Pick, and named Best Book of the Year So Far by TIME, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and AARP. Verghese is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and in 2016 received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama.