From the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Quad to the White House lawn, Atul A. Gawande has tried his hand at prose composition, policy-making, and patient care.

When he approaches the podium Thursday as the HMS Class Day speaker, Gawande will be looking down at the place where he sat 10 years ago, listening to the speaker on his own Class Day.

Gawande graduated from HMS in 1995 after a political stint in the Clinton White House. Today, he’s an Assistant Professor of Surgery at HMS and an Assistant Professor in Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health (SPH). Primarily a cancer surgeon, he also serves as associate surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

He’s pursued a writing career, too, as an author and staff writer on science and medicine for The New Yorker since 1998.

Known for his patient-centered approach to medicine, Gawande has used his experience in the operating room to write of the trials and tribulations of being a surgeon. At 39, he will be one of the youngest HMS Class Day speakers ever.

RULES OF THE GAME

This Thursday, in a speech titled “Five Rules,” Gawande says he hopes to encourage graduates to make a difference in the burgeoning world of medicine.

His speech will advise graduates about working as part of the current medical workforce of one million physicians, three million nurses, and hundreds of thousands of lab technicians and nutritionists, he says.

“My rules are rules for survival but also rules for being a good doctor and a good human being,” he says.

Gawande says he wants to promote the fusion of a humanist approach and scientific training.

Explaining the importance of this two-pronged method, Gawande says it’s important “to actually connect in a human way with the people around you, and to know the people you work with, or who come to you for care.”

Those who know Gawande describe him as a role model for aspiring medical practitioners.

“He really listens and is interested in the people who come before him,” says Sara Bershtel, the associate publisher of Metropolitan Books, which produces Gawande’s books. “I suppose that’s a very good thing to value when you’re speaking to people who are about to work in medicine.”

BALANCING ACT

Gawande’s writing applies both his academic and professional experience to examine the world of medicine.