The professor, neurosurgeon, investor, and author founded CCARE, Stanford Medicine’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education.

James “Jim” R. Doty, MD, founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford Medicine, died at age 69 on July 16, 2025, after complications from surgery. He was with those closest to him, including his dog, Ringo.

“A highly successful entrepreneur and immensely skilled neurosurgeon, Jim was committed to using his abilities to better the human experience,” said Lloyd Minor, MD, dean of the Stanford School of Medicine and vice president for medical affairs at Stanford University. “His compassion and kindness improved the lives of countless individuals, and his legacy will resonate at Stanford and beyond.”

Doty founded CCARE at Stanford Medicine in 2008 and funded it by selling stock he earned running a surgical tool company. CCARE is a hub for interdisciplinary research and a training ground for compassion practices that can be applied not only in medicine, but in other workplaces, communities, and everyday life. Doty led the academic study of compassion and altruism and designed programs to teach compassion skills.

“His is a legacy of generosity, of kindness, of compassion,” said Robert Cusick, director of compassion education at CCARE. “He didn’t just talk about compassion – he lived it. He walked his talk.”

Besides his work at CCARE, Doty was a neurosurgeon who specialized in tools that deliver targeted radiation treatments to the brain and allow for minimally invasive and complex spine surgery. He was also a philanthropist and a New York Times bestselling author of Into the Magic Shop – about how mindfulness techniques transformed his life – and Mind Magic – about the neuroscience of manifestation. He was an entrepreneur, investor, and consultant to startup companies. At his death, he was CEO of Happi.AI, an app using his face and voice as a human avatar to deliver compassion-based coaching.

Doty was unapologetically himself – boisterous, direct, with no time for pretension. He often cursed, his CCARE colleagues said, but he was also deeply vulnerable, willing to shed tears and expose his tender side. People were drawn to his radical honesty, unpolished edges, and raw authenticity, Neelama Eyres, director of program development at CCARE, said.

“As much of a giant as he was, he was equally able to convey this humble humanity,” Eyres said. “That’s why so many people who never met him felt this personal kinship with him.”

Rags to riches and back again

Doty was born Dec. 1, 1955, in Lancaster, California, the youngest of three children. His early life was marked by poverty and parents who struggled deeply, something he shared in Into the Magic Shop.

In his youth, Doty’s path was unexpectedly altered by a woman named Ruth, whom he met in a magic shop in a strip mall. She was the shop owner’s mother, and she saw a boy in need of guidance. Over six weeks, she taught him meditation and visualization, giving him a way to imagine a better future.

That potential future first manifested as Doty was the first in his family to go to college. He attended the University of California, Irvine, where he studied biology and rowed crew. In 1976, he met his future wife, Timarie, at a party for the crew team. They married on Aug. 17, 1979, and had a daughter, Jennifer, who was born a week before Doty earned his medical degree from Tulane University in 1981.

After graduation, he completed a neurosurgery residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He served nine years on active duty in the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of major and completing fellowships in pediatric neurosurgery and electroneurophysiology.

During the 1990s, Doty built a neurosurgery practice in Orange County, California. Around that time, he reconnected with John Adler, MD, now a professor emeritus in neurosurgery at Stanford Medicine. He first met Adler in the late 1980s while visiting a friend at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where Adler was a resident.

“Jim was a remarkably skilled surgeon,” Adler said. “It always surprised me a little, because his hands were so big. How could they be so delicate? But he had good judgment, and he really was a good surgeon.”

Adler was developing the CyberKnife – a robotic system that delivers highly precise radiation to treat brain tumors without traditional surgery. Doty immediately saw its potential and worked with Adler to bring the system to Hoag Memorial Hospital in Orange County.

In 1997, Doty shifted his focus to working with Adler’s company Accuray, which focused on commercializing the CyberKnife, closing his neurosurgery practice, and relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area. Accuray was running on fumes when Doty invested a sizable personal sum and became CEO. “He saved my company,” Adler recalled. Doty led the company until 1999, securing additional funding and Food and Drug Administration approval for the CyberKnife.

In addition to his Accuray role, Doty joined Stanford Medicine in 1997 as a faculty member in the Department of Neurosurgery. Over the years, he served as an attending neurosurgeon at Stanford Hospital and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, as chief of the Complex Spine Service, and later as clinical professor of neurosurgery. He remained affiliated with Stanford for more than two decades, where he combined clinical practice; teaching; and, ultimately, his pioneering work in compassion research.

Through his work as a biotechnology entrepreneur, Doty had built a fortune of nearly $75 million in stock. To offset an expected tax bill, he placed his Accuray stock into a trust and pledged the proceeds of its eventual sale to charitable causes.

Turning point

What came next was a turbulent time in Doty’s life. In 1999, he and Timarie divorced. In 2000, the dot-com crash hit, wiping out his personal wealth in a matter of weeks and plunging him $3 million into debt. What remained of his assets was the Accuray stock in the trust, which he had already committed to charitable causes. It was a devastating financial loss, but also a turning point.

While rebuilding his career, focusing on his neurosurgery roles and new biotechnology ventures, Doty met his second wife, Masha, in San Francisco, and they married in 2002. “He was truly my soulmate,” Masha Doty recalled of their 25 years together. Their son Sebastian was born in 2004; son Alexander was born in 2009.

In 2004, Doty took a leave from Stanford Medicine to launch a regional neuroscience institute at Memorial Hospital in Gulfport, Mississippi, which became a center of excellence. He was in Gulfport when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 and remained for two more years, helping the hospital and community recover.

Losing his money and the period that followed brought Doty back to Ruth’s teachings and showed him the true purpose of his life – learning and teaching about compassion.

Accuray entered the stock market at a $1.3 billion valuation in 2007. When the stock was sold, Doty’s trust generated more than $30 million. Beneficiaries of the trust included Stanford Medicine, as well as Tulane University, where Doty endowed a chair and scholarship, and programs for AIDS, family health, and global health.

The stock that Doty pledged to Stanford Medicine generated the school more than $5 million, one of the largest faculty gifts in its history. The funds established the James R. Doty Professorship in Neurosurgery and Neurosciences, currently held by Ivan Soltesz, PhD, and the annual Doty Family Neurosurgery Prize, awarded to graduating chief residents. The fund was also used to launch CCARE, which he founded with an unprecedented $150,000 donation from the Dalai Lama.

As a part of the School of Medicine, CCARE was created to study the neuroscience of compassion and train people – including those in the medical field ­– in compassion. “Jim taught us that each of us has the capacity to be kind to others, but each of us has the capacity to also be kind to ourselves,” said Al’ai Alvarez, MD, director of quality education at CCARE and clinical associate professor at Stanford Medicine. That kindness can help prevent physician burnout, Alvarez said.

“He was driven by the belief that we could all be better, that we could be kinder, that we could be more compassionate,” Eyres said. “He was determined to pay forward that compassion intervention that was magic for him as a boy.”

Through his leadership at CCARE, his books, and his lectures, Doty became a beacon for those seeking to be more compassionate. “Over and over and over what I heard regarding Jim was that ‘Jim changed my life for the better,’” Eyres said. “This sentiment has been shared by thousands and thousands of people.”

Doty formally stopped practicing medicine in 2021, dedicating himself to writing, teaching, and compassion projects.

A simple family life

For all of his public roles, home was where Doty found his true sanctuary. He led the interior design of their house – carefully curating every doorknob, stone, and plant, Masha Doty said. It was the stage for family dinners, conversations, and quiet evenings in the hot tub.

“As a parent, he was always present,” his son Sebastian Doty said. “Even in the busiest moments, he always made time, whether it was mentoring me when I started a business in high school or grabbing breakfast together.”

His home life blended simplicity with joy. He delighted in movies like The Pink Panther or John Wick. He loved animals, taking special joy in his daily walks with Ringo. Family trips to Orcas Island were another happy refuge. He worked hard, often waking early. “He knew that our time here was limited,” Masha Doty said. “He wanted to pack as much as possible into life so that he could have the most impact on the largest number of people.”

Doty is survived by his wife, Masha; sons, Sebastian and Alexander Doty of Los Altos Hills, California; and his daughter, Jennifer Doty of Bolinas, California. He is also survived by his parents-in-law, Alla and Alexei Zhdanovich. He was preceded in death by his parents, as well as his older brother, Edward Doty, and his sister, Lou Ann Chow.

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This story was originally published by Stanford Medicine News Center before it was picked up by the Stanford Report.