Remembering Dr Atul Butte, a Medical Hero

Medscape

6 days ago

'Like Mike. If I could be like Mike.'
On August 8, 1991, Gatorade launched one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history. "Be Like Mike" featured children and adults of all backgrounds emulating basketball great Michael Jordan's moves while the famous jingle played: "Sometimes I dream / That he is me / You've got to see that's how I dream to be." (The rest will play in your head. You're welcome). The campaign tapped into our primal need for role models.
Atul Butte, MD, PhD
The ad's genius lay not in selling sugar water but in commodifying aspiration. Here was the divine Jordan, tongue out, defying gravity, and a simple message: You too can transcend earthly limitations. We all knew better. And yet, I had my own Mike-like space-creating move to a fadeaway that worked (once). I'm sure I pumped my fist like Mike when it dropped.
Heroes like Jordan are harder to find in medicine, but we can still seek them out among the diagnostic savants, the surgical virtuosos, the masterful presenters. Dr Atul Butte, a pediatric endocrinologist turned data evangelist, was one of those heroes.
Like with Jordan, I never met Dr Butte but knew him from afar. His talks were inspiring, not just for his comedic, down-to-earth style, but also for the work that they represented. Butte trained as a pediatric endocrinologist. Early in his career, he recognized that while we doctors generate massive amounts of data — from research, electronic medical records, genomics — we weren't making full use of it. Hidden in those gigabytes were insights that could improve diagnosis and treatment and prevent disease.
So, Butte pivoted. He immersed himself in data science. He collaborated across disciplines. And he refused to let traditional career paths define him. Over time, he became a leader in computational health, founded multiple biotech startups, and directed informatics for all of the University of California Health Systems. His mission was to transform messy data into actionable knowledge that helps patients.
What I find inspiring about Butte isn't just the scale of his success; it was his curiosity. His refusal to accept 'this is the way we do things.' His optimism. And his remarkable generosity. He was as enthusiastic about sharing as he was about discovering. The crush of conference goers would always be six deep to the dais when lights came up.
There's something moving about this commitment to sharing knowledge and tools, especially in an era when information is hoarded as intellectual property. Butte's students — now scattered across universities and hospitals and technology companies — carry forward not just his methods but his approach to problems: curious, collaborative, persistently optimistic about the possibility of reducing human suffering through better understanding.
Watching highlight reels of Dr Butte's career, we can see what separates the GOATs from the rest of us. He showed us that we should value connection as much as we value expertise. To see that in a world drowning in information, the ability to make meaningful connections across different domains of knowledge is essential for excellence.
His core philosophy, summed up as "unfreezing" biomedical data, was a vision for the future of medicine. His genius was in asking simple, yet audacious questions: "What if we could spot patterns across millions of patients, not just the few in our own clinics?' This wasn't idle curiosity; it was a pragmatic, mischievous drive to build the teams and tools to make it happen. In one striking example, Butte's team analyzed data to discover that cimetidine showed promise in treating lung adenocarcinoma. Here was a drug sitting on shelves for decades and hidden there was something that might help patients with cancer. His virtuoso was to play effortlessly between medicine, computer science, and engineering.
After his untimely death at the age of 55 in June, tributes to him poured into LinkedIn. Colleagues remembered him not just as a visionary, but as a "big bear of a man with a huge smile and love for everyone." He was described as having "energy that could power a room" and a unique ability to "elevate people around him." His advocacy and his dedication to mentoring "hundreds if not thousands" of students and researchers — making them feel supported and seen — speak volumes. He believed in "scalable privilege," that data insights should be accessible to all, and he lived that belief by empowering those around him.
Dr Atul Butte showed us new, creative moves, and perhaps just as important, the same encouraging, radiant Jordan-like smile that made us believe we could actually play like him. By nurturing that curiosity — and channeling a bit of that infectious optimism — we can discover new tools and techniques to advance the practice of medicine. We should all wanna be like him.
Jeffrey Benabio, MD, MBA, is chief of dermatology at Kaiser Permanente San Diego. The opinions expressed in this column are his own and do not represent those of Kaiser Permanente. Dr Benabio is @Dermdoc on X.