Title: Mountains Beyond Mountains About Keynote Speaker Paul Farmer is Timely Suggestion in CHPPD Reading Club
Author:
Section/SPIG: Community Health Planning and Policy Development
Issue Date:
In the CHPPD Reading Club, Karen Valenzuela, the CHPPD liaison to the APHA Executive Board writes: "For the few left among us who haven't yet read this wonderful and inspiring book about a true public health hero in our midst, now is the time! Dr. Paul Farmer, the subject of the book, has been confirmed as the opening keynote speaker at our Annual Meeting in Boston later this year. Knowing about his life's work as Tracy Kidder so richly details it will no doubt enhance his message considerably. For a brief review in the Washington State Public Health Association newsletter, see http://www.wspha.org/wspha_winter_2005_newsletter.pdf."
In the Washington State Public Health Association newsletter review of the book, Karen writes, "It is masterfuly written by award-winning writer and documentarian Tracy Kidder, chronicling the life and work of Farmer in the impoverished community of Cange, Haiti, during and after the reign of Baby Doc Duvalier."
Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, is a well-known leader in health and human rights. Farmer is a founding director of Partners in Health, an international organization that tackles issues around the globe, including AIDS and women’s health in urban Massachusetts, as well as tuberculosis treatment in the prisons of Siberia, Russia. A medical director of a clinic in rural Haiti as well as an attending physician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Farmer has worked in infectious disease control for nearly two decades and is an authority on AIDS and tuberculosis. He will be joined by a longtime advocate for human rights Helene Gayle, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention and former director of HIV, tuberculosis and reproductive health at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
|
| Reading "mountains" on Acadia, Maine's carriage road |
I did read the book on Karen’s suggestion, and it is indeed fascinating. He started working in Haiti when he was 23 years old. His family was not wealthy, and growing up, he lived with his family out of a trailer. I was as fascinated by the friends he made on the way. Ophelia Dahl, author Roald Dahl’s daughter, now manages his the non-profit organization "Partners in Health" that they founded along with Jim Kim, a classmate from Harvard Medical School. It was fascinating to Tom White, a large-hearted Boston business who financed their humanitarian efforts till his money ran out, and his wife Didi who was studying anthropology in Paris when the book was written. The characters are endearing. The book is a lesson about how a small team of dedicated people can make a difference in the world.