SANDEEP JAUHAR, MD
New York Times columnist, acclaimed author & physician
Sandeep Jauhar became a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times in March 2015. A practicing cardiologist, he earned a Ph.D. in experimental physics at U.C. Berkeley before going on to study medicine at Washington University in St Louis. He has been writing regularly about medicine for the Times since 1998.
In addition to his journalism, has written three bestselling books, all published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. His first book, Intern: A Doctor's Initiation, was a national bestseller and was optioned by NBC for a dramatic television series.
His second book, Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician, was a New York Times bestseller and was named a New York Post Best Book of 2014.
Heart: A History was named a best book of 2018 by the Mail on Sunday, Science Friday, Zocalo Public Square, and the Los Angeles Public Library, and was the PBS NewsHour/New York Times book club pick for January 2019; it was also a finalist for the Wellcome Book Prize.
My Father’s Brain (2023) is a memoir of his relationship with his father as he succumbed to dementia, but it is also about the history and science of brain degeneration. In the book, Jauhar sets his father’s descent into Alzheimer’s alongside his own journey toward understanding his father’s disease
The book relates the complications that arise when family members must become caregivers, as well as the bonds of siblings—and the testing of those bonds. Though the conflicts are personal, they are also in many ways universal—conversations and conflicts that every family facing the mental erosion of an elder has. At the same time, the book explores everything from the history of ancient Greece to the most cutting-edge neurological―and bioethical―research. It delves into what happens in the brain as we age and our memory falters, how memory gives meaning to our lives, even as it changes with time, how dementia complicates our understanding of what it means to have a self — and what all this means for patients, their families, and society at large.
Dr. Jauhar has appeared frequently on National Public Radio, CNN, and MSNBC to discuss issues related to medicine. His essays have also been published in The Wall Street Journal, Time, and Slate. His TED Talk on the emotional heart was one of the ten most-watched TED Talks of 2019. To learn more about him and his work, visit his website at www.sandeepjauhar.com or follow him on Twitter: @sjauhar.
Speech topics
My Father's Brain
Sandeep takes audiences on a revelatory inquiry into why the human brain degenerates with age and what we can do about it. About one in every ten Americans over the age of sixty-five--have Alzheimer's disease or related dementias, and this number is projected to more than double by 2050.
What is it like to live with and amid this increasingly prevalent condition--an affliction that some fear more than death?
Sandeep sets his father's descent into Alzheimer's alongside his own journey toward understanding this disease and how it might best be coped with, if not cured.
In an intimate talk rich with humor and heartbreak, he relates how his father and extended family felt, quarreled, and found their way through the dissolution of a cherished life. Along the way, he lucidly exposes what happens in the brain as we age and our memory falters. The result is a work of essential insight into dementia, and into how scientists, caregivers, and all of us in an aging society are reckoning with the fallout.
The Emotional Heart
For many years and across many cultures, the heart was thought to be where our emotions resided. Today we know that the heart is not the source of our emotions. And yet more and more, the field of medicine is coming to understand that the connection between the heart and the emotions is an intimate one. In other words, it is increasingly clear that our hearts are sensitive to our emotional system — to the metaphorical heart, if you will. Sandeep Jauhar will speak about the many ways in which the emotional heart and the biological heart intersect, such as broken-heart syndrome, emotional arrhythmias, and sudden death. He will show that treating our hearts optimally requires treating our minds, too.
Patient and Physician Burnout: Fixing America’s Healthcare System
Sandeep presents a fascinating look at what really goes on in both hospitals and the minds of our doctors as part of his deeply personal mission to return meaning and moral grounding to a noble profession.
Doctors feel forced to prescribe unnecessary tests and participate in an elaborate system of patient referrals just to cover costs, boost revenue, and protect themselves from malpractice suits. Sandeep shares stories where a single patient might see fifteen specialists in one hospital stay, none of which can maintain a full picture of his actual condition, and leave with a bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Sandeep’s mission is to bring the patient’s best interests back to the center of the conversation.
Books
My Father's Brain: Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer's
A deeply affecting memoir of a father's descent into dementia, and a revelatory inquiry into why the human brain degenerates with age and what we can do about it.
Heart: A History
Deftly alternating between key historical episodes and his own work, Jauhar tells the colorful and little-known story of the doctors who risked their careers and the patients who risked their lives to know and heal our most vital organ.
Intern: A Doctor's Initiation
Intern is Dr. Sandeep Jauhar's story of his days and nights in residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question his every assumption about medical care today.
Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician
In his acclaimed memoir Intern, Sandeep Jauhar chronicled the formative years of his residency at a prestigious New York City hospital.