Verghese is currently a professor at Stanford University's Medical School, teaching the Theory and practise of Medicine. He is also an author, writing his first book, My Own Country: A Doctor's Story (1994), while working at Thomason Hospital in Texas. His second book, The Tennis Partner: A storey of Friendship and Loss, was published in 1999.

Verghese's most well-known book is his debut novel, Cutting for Stone (2009), which was shortlisted for the Wellcome Trust Book Prize in 2009 and won the Indies Choice Book Award for Adult Fiction in 2010.