Indian-American doc gets top US honour

An Indian-American physician and author has been presented with the National Humanities Medal, America’s highest humanities award by US President Barack Obama for his contribution in the field of medicine. Currently a professor of medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine, Abraham Varghese has authored several acclaimed books including My Own Country and Cutting for Stone.

He was presented with the medal along with several other recipients at a ceremony held at the White House on Thursday.

“The 2015 National Humanities Medal to Abraham Verghese for reminding us that the patient is the centre of the medical enterprise,” the citation of medal read.

“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,” a military aide to the US President said, reading from the citation.

“All of today’s honorees work in an age where the stories we tell and the technologies that we use to tell them are more diverse than ever before, and as diverse as the country that we love,” Obama said on the occasion.

Started in 1997, the National Humanities Medal “honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the human experience, broadened citizens’ engagement with history, literature, languages, philosophy, and other humanities subjects”.

Mr Verghese is a critically acclaimed, best-selling author and a physician with an international reputation for his emphasis on empathy for patients in an era in which technology often overwhelms the human side of medicine, the Stanford University said in a statement.