Dr. Paul Farmer

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This morning...this SATURDAY morning, I woke up early so that I could go to see Dr. Paul Farmer speak. Before January, I had never heard of Farmer or Partners in Health, the health care organization he co-founded. After reading about him in my Global Poverty class, however, I have come to see him as someone who is to be admired greatly for his work with the poor. Farmer has opened clinics in Haiti, Peru, Russia, Africa, and south Boston, where he provides health care for those who cannot afford it. Although it is generally understood that medicine is a commodity and not a right, Farmer believes, as most people do, that everyone has the right to life. Therefore, he and those he works with use their talents to fund these programs that allow the poor to receive the care they need. He has done wonders for the HIV and TB epidemics in Haiti, for example, and pretty much bothered the hell out of the World Health Organization to allow important drugs to be made under generic names, therefore making them cheaper for those who need them most. Clearly, Farmer is a man who puts a lot of others to shame. And the thing is, he is so...normal.

Farmer grew up in Florida and always wanted to be a doctor. I think he went to Duke for undergrad, and that was where he had his first experience with Haiti. He met someone from Haiti who gave him his first dose of the poorest country in the Western world. He didn't actually go to Haiti, however. Then, he went to Med School at Harvard. This is when he began to get really involved in the lives of the poor. He actually spent a great deal of his medical school career traveling back and forth, and even though he got exceptional grades, he missed many classes. Anyway, he continued on this path and became a doctor, and immediately decided not to only provide services to people who could afford them. He has always believed that, as Bono once said, "Where you live should not determine whether you live," and he still does. And all of this is part of what makes him so normal and so admirable. He always wanted to be a doctor, and until he was pretty far along in his education he had no intentions of going to Haiti or anything like that. He simply went after his goals and dreams, and they took him to Haiti.

Today when he spoke to the huge crowd that came out to see him, he made the point of telling us to do what we are passionate about. People asked him how they could contribute to his cause if they did not have the skills necessary, and his main advice that he offered was to follow our passions and do something great with them. He didn't preach to us about doing what he does, or how wonderful what he does is. He told us that he is doing what he sees as his calling, and we should follow our own callings and use them to serve our fellow man. He was so inspiring without making anyone feel the slightest bit of guilt. After leaving, I began to think of what I could use my talents and passions for, and I think I may want to teach adult literacy courses in the inner city one day.

Dr. Farmer was so inspiring, and he is a real role model. He shows us that you do not have to give up a privileged background and upbringing to do good. He encouraged each and every one of us to go as far as we wanted to in school and to then use our skills for good. This was definitely the best lecture I have ever attended at Villanova.

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