In May of 2023 Dr. Ralph Horwitz invited myself & my friend Abbey to Abraham Verghese’s book reading of “The Covenant of Water”. His bible-length work of fiction had been picked by Oprah’s Book Club.

Ralph first met Abraham through his writing. “My Own Country” had acquired a cult-like following in the physician community. The non-fiction work told the story of an immigrant infectious disease specialist treating patients in an Appalachian Mountain community during the AIDS epidemic. The physician’s patient panel included a statistically significant concentration of older men who’d contracted the illness.

The puzzle was eventually solved – these men had left their rural hometowns to live their life of choice in the city, but had come home to reconcile with their families. It was a story of the patients’ alienation from their families & communities, and the physician’s alienation from his colleagues in medicine (not all were treating this condition) and as an immigrant.

Ralph, Head of Medicine at the time, invited Abraham to Yale for Grand Rounds. The auditorium was packed. The audience was silent. Ralph then sought to recruit Abraham to Yale. He declined the offer but not the friendship, and years later Abraham came to work with Ralph at Stanford as his Vice Chair.

I met Ralph in 2019 at McKinsey – I was building machine learning models for a biopharma company, and he was a Senior Advisor informing model development. We continued to work together as I grew to manage data science teams, and he became a trusted mentor. Ralph has a unique understanding of both data & healthcare, a mind full with an endless supply of innovative ideas, and a clarity of explanation honed by years of teaching. When I made the jump to building Parambil full time, he served as an advisor for months before coming on board as Chief Medical Officer.

Ralph has been an incredibly important person in my life. So when an incredibly important person in his, Abraham, published a new book, I of course took on the 736 page adventure. Parambil sets the stage for “The Covenant of Water” – 500 core acres of land that grow and grow in importance. Without revealing much, the book is a beautiful adventure.

So why Parambil? It reminds us how special long-term relationships with remarkable people are. It reminds us to dream, to build, that we can grow. It reminds us to innovate. Parambil is a group of exceptional people building exceptional experiences.