Paul Farmer
Paul Farmer
Paul Edward Farmeris an American anthropologist and physician who is best known for his humanitarian work providing suitable health care to rural and under-resourced areas in developing countries, beginning in Haiti. Co-founder of an international social justice and health organization, Partners In Health, he is known as "the man who would cure the world," as described in the book, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth26 October 1959
CountryUnited States of America
...In a world riven by inequity, medicine could be viewed as social justice work.
The model of the teaching hospital, which links research to teaching and service is what's missing in global health.
Equity is the only acceptable goal
I've been impressed, over the last 15 years, with how often the somewhat conspiratorial comments of Haitian villagers have been proven to be correct when the historical record is probed carefully.
I'm not an austere person.
I've been asked a lot for my view on American health care. Well, 'it would be a good idea,' to quote Gandhi.
At the same time, it is obvious that clinicians in Haiti are faced with different, and, in fact, greater, challenges when attempting to treat complications of HIV disease.
I critique market-based medicine not because I haven't seen its heights but because I've seen its depths.
I would say that, intellectually, Catholicism had no more impact on me than did social theory.
The thing about rights is that in the end you can't prove what should be considered a right.
In an age of explosive development in the realm of medical technology, it is unnerving to find that the discoveries of Salk, Sabin, and even Pasteur remain irrelevant to much of humanity.
You can't have public health without working with the public sector. You can't have public education without working with the public sector in education.
The human rights community has focused very narrowly on political and civil rights for many decades, and with reason, but now we have to ask how can we broaden the view.
Everybody should be interested in access to primary and secondary education for everybody.