Extensive journey in pursuit of ‘how to enhance the human condition’

A lengthy career that links medicine, social science, and the humanities has bestowed upon Arthur Kleinman a significant understanding.

“Care, when critically interpreted and applied, holds the utmost importance,” he expressed to a full auditorium last week. “This is central to any claim I may have to wisdom and truth.”

Kleinman, M.A. ’74, a psychiatrist with numerous accolades, including Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor of Anthropology, is set to officially retire next year after nearly 50 years at Harvard. However, he concluded his classroom teaching last Tuesday with the last session of his “Future of Medical Anthropology” seminar.

The event attracted close to 200 current and former students to Sever Hall, with many additional participants joining through Zoom. Five alumni shared their experiences of Kleinman’s influence as an instructor, author, advisor, and ethical guide devoted to fostering cross-cultural understanding and enhancing well-being.

“The legacy he leaves us is the realization that knowledge is not solely associated with patents and enterprises,” noted Adams House Faculty Dean Salmaan A. Keshavjee, Ph.D. ’98, who is also the director of the Center for Global Health Delivery at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and a professor of Global Health and Social Medicine in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine (GHSM). “It relates to a deeper comprehension of how to improve the human state.”

Kleinman, also a professor of medical anthropology in GHSM and Psychiatry at HMS, first arrived at Harvard with his spouse, Joan, in the autumn of 1970. Supported by the National Science Foundation, the Stanford-educated M.D. arrived to conduct a comparative analysis of medical systems across cultural contexts.

“I soon realized that anthropology was a fitting path for me,” Kleinman recounted.

He launched Harvard’s inaugural course in medical anthropology in 1973. After departing in 1976 for an associate professorship at the University of Washington, the authority on health care in Chinese culture returned to Cambridge by 1982, now in a senior role shared between the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and HMS.

“And that is the position from which I will be retiring in July 2026 when I formally conclude my career, and from where today — 43 years later — I deliver this, my final lecture,” Kleinman stated.

He recognized the contributions of the late Harvard professor of social medicine and psychiatry Leon Eisenberg as well as former students including the late Paul Farmer, M.D/Ph.D. ’90, a renowned co-founder of Partners In Health. Kleinman also acknowledged a long list of staff and faculty assistants who over the years have contributed to establishing the medical anthropology program.

“We’ve had around 100 doctoral candidates, 25 of whom are M.D./Ph.D.’s; more than 250 postdoctoral fellows, including researchers from various parts of the globe; over 50 M.A. students; numerous students from the Chan School of Public Health and other Harvard institutions; hundreds of medical students; and thousands of undergraduates,” he detailed.

Veterans of the program acknowledged more than just Kleinman’s intellectual depth and ethical guidance. His significant body of work was also prominent. In the concluding class, former World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, M.D. ’91, Ph.D. ’93, who co-founded Partners In Health with Farmer, spoke of the transformative impact of Kleinman’s “Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture” (1980).

Anne E. Becker ’83, M.D./Ph.D. ’90, the Medical School’s dean for Clinical and Academic Affairs and its Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, referenced the encouragement she derived from “The Soul of Care” (2019), Kleinman’s portrayal of navigating the healthcare system as a family caregiver from Joan’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis until her passing in 2011.

“This book has become my reference point as a clinician — and, quite honestly, in my roles as an educator, mentor, and colleague,” Becker remarked.