Paul Farmer

2022 - 2 - 21

dr paul farmer

Global health champion Dr. Paul Farmer has died (WYPR)

Known for his efforts to improve global health and as the founder of the nonprofit health organization Partners in Health, Farmer died in Rwanda at age 62.

"I think Paul died doing what he loved to do most — caring for patients, teaching and extending his love to everyone." In 2019, he was also the recipient of Rwanda's National Order of Outstanding Friendship, given to those who have performed outstanding acts in promoting cooperation between Rwanda and other countries. Maybe a little cloud of pessimism would spur us to prepare better for a public health catastrophe." He really forced us to reckon with ... the disparities in health in the world," says Dr. Joe Rhatigan of Harvard Medical School. He first met Farmer in the early 1990s, when they were both medical residents. A source close to Farmer said he had been in Rwanda for the past several weeks teaching at the University of Global Health Equity, the medical school that he helped found with the country's former minister of health, Dr. Agnes Binagwaho. Over the years, Farmer proved enormously successful in spreading the word about his ideas, raising money and essentially starting a whole field of global health equity. "There's going to be nobody else like him," he says. Asked if he was optimistic or pessimistic about the impact of the pandemic on those nations, he told NPR: "Let's all hope for the best. Over the next three decades, PIH expanded to countries across Africa and Latin America, to Russia and to the Navajo Nation in the United States. Writer Tracy Kidder profiled Farmer in his 2003 book, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, which later became required reading for many a student and practitioner in global health. During the coronavirus pandemic, Farmer tried to keep a positive outlook for low-income countries. He wanted to bring in the most sophisticated treatments, including what were then cutting-edge HIV/AIDS drugs largely only available in wealthy countries. Our deepest sympathies are with his wife Didi and three children," said PIH CEO Sheila Davis, in a statement.

Remembering Dr. Paul Farmer (Partners in Health)

Dr. Paul Farmer, PIH's chief strategist and co-founder, passed away in Rwanda on Monday. Three decades ago, he helped found Partners In Health, ...

He wrote extensively on health, human rights, and the consequences of social inequality. Dr. Farmer and his colleagues pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies that demonstrate the delivery of high-quality health care in resource-poor settings. Dr. Farmer was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, from which he was the recipient of the 2018 Public Welfare Medal. About Dr. Paul Farmer Our deepest sympathies are with his family.” Remembering Dr. Paul Farmer

Paul Farmer, a giant of public health, dies at 62 (The Washington Post)

Dr. Farmer, the subject of Tracy Kidder's book "Mountains Beyond Mountains," devoted his professional life to improving health care in the most destitute ...

Dr. Farmer began his work in the Haitian village of Cange, where he met his future wife, Didi Bertrand, the daughter of a local schoolmaster. Dr. Farmer enrolled at Duke University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in medical anthropology in 1982 before undertaking the volunteer mission that would in many ways set the course of the rest of his life. But, he added, “People call me a saint and I think, I have to work harder. “I don’t care how often people say, ‘You’re a saint,' ” he told Kidder. “It’s not that I mind it. She had a fever of 105 degrees and was “shaking like a leaf,” Dr. Farmer said. His father, whom Dr. Farmer described as “not a very orthodox guy,” was a schoolteacher. At one point during Dr. Farmer’s upbringing, his father moved the family into a retrofitted bus that had once been a tuberculosis mobile clinic. “When we were growing up in the campground, we were all sort of embarrassed by it, but I think all of us now feel grateful to my parents for having liberated us from middle-class expectations,” Dr. Farmer told the Times in 2003. During his first trip to Haiti, he recalled, he encountered a 7-year-old girl who was sick with malaria. Public health, as he envisioned it, was about not only the welfare of an entire community but also the well-being of every person within it. He brooked few objections from politicians or more pessimistic public health experts about the practicality of attempting to deliver full-scale medical services in places such as Haiti. Sometimes described as a modern-day Albert Schweitzer, Dr. Farmer was a doctor, a humanitarian and, by all accounts, an almost otherworldly force whose aspirations for global public health seemed unattainable until he showed they were within reach.

Dr. Paul Farmer, global humanitarian leader, dies at 62 (Bay to Bay News)

In this picture taken Jan. 10, 2012, Partners in Health's co-founder, Dr. Paul Farmer, gestures during the inauguration of national referral and teaching ...

'I Just Came Across Kindness': Humanitarian Paul Farmer Dies (WebMD)

Farmer spent his adult life focused on global health. He died Monday in Rwanda at age 62.

“It’s cliché, but the energetic kick you get from just being in his presence, it’s almost otherworldly,” she said. His humanitarian work began when he was a college student volunteering in Haiti in 1983, working with dispossessed farmers. Farmer was born in North Adams, MA, and grew up in Florida with his parents and five siblings. “Paul taught all those around him the power of accompaniment, love for one another, and solidarity. To me, Paul represented the heart and soul of Harvard Medical School.” “Paul dedicated his life to improving human health and advocating for health equity and social justice on a global scale,” Harvard Medical School Dean George Q. Daley said in a letter to the school.

Paul Farmer, Pioneer of Global Health, Dies at 62 (The New York Times)

As a medical student, Dr. Farmer decided to build a clinic in Haiti. It grew into a vast network serving some of the world's poorest communities.

He was godfather to more than 100 children, most of them in Haiti, said Laurie Nuell, a close friend and board director at Partners in Health. “He had a very tender heart,” she said. He added, “He called me his mentor, but in reality he was more of a mentor to me.” Dr. Farmer had homes in Rwinkwavu, Rwanda; Cange, Haiti; and Miami. Dr. Farmer decided to open a different kind of clinic. He had a contagious enthusiasm and considerable nerve. “The biggest problem is that the hospital is not for the poor. He arrived toward the end of the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier, when Haiti’s hospital system was so threadbare that patients had to pay for basic supplies, like medical gloves or a blood transfusion, if they wanted treatment. Though he worked in the world of development, he often took a critical view of international aid, preferring to work with local providers and leaders. In a letter to a friend, he wrote that his stint at the hospital wasn’t turning out as he had expected. He credited this period with giving him “a very compliant GI system,” a knack for sleeping anywhere and an inability to be shy or embarrassed. One summer, he and his family worked alongside Haitian migrant workers picking oranges, listening curiously as they chatted to one another in Creole from atop ladders.