2008 Woodie Awards
Farmer, Kidder speak at Smith orientation
Leighanne Noonan
Issue date: 9/14/06 Section: News
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On Tuesday, Sep. 5, John M. Greene Hall rang with heavy applause and hearty laughter as Tracy Kidder and Paul Farmer took the stage. Kidder, a native of the Massachusetts area, is the author of Mountains Beyond Mountains, a nonfiction piece that chronicles the work of physician Paul Farmer. The story of this impressive doctor was the summer reading selection for the incoming class of 2010.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Kidder introduced Farmer on Tuesday night as a doctor who addresses "every variety of human illness." Kidder stressed that in telling the story of his subject he recognized all illness as "deserving of first rate care." Farmer proved that all human ailments can be "treated effectively in the harshest conditions," Kidder said.
Farmer spoke of such unbearable conditions in his remarks. A graduate of Duke University and Harvard Medical School, the charismatic doctor stressed that all people have "basic rights that include the right to health care." No matter how impoverished a group of people or an individual may be, they have "the right to education, to housing, to security; they have the right to live."
In the 1980s Farmer recognized that the global community had "the lowest expectations when it comes to public health." In establishing his organization, Partners in Health, Farmer sought to raise these standards by proving that no task is too big, no problem too expensive to be left unsolved. Thus the doctor and his team travel to the harshest corners of the most impoverished nations to bring medical care and defend basic human rights. Send his workers to the most shattered corner of the world and "they will flourish," promised Farmer.
In the years since its establishment, Partners in Health has aimed to defend basic human rights and provide for those who are struggling. The foundation has ongoing projects across the globe stretching their resources from Haiti to Rwanda, and from Mexico to Kenya.
To be successful in any given area, Farmer stresses "the specifics of place." The organization "asks the people what they want in their community while also looking to promote a [healthcare] agenda," and does "everything we can to promote basic goals while thinking about what the people said they need in any given place in the world."
Pulitzer Prize-winning Kidder introduced Farmer on Tuesday night as a doctor who addresses "every variety of human illness." Kidder stressed that in telling the story of his subject he recognized all illness as "deserving of first rate care." Farmer proved that all human ailments can be "treated effectively in the harshest conditions," Kidder said.
Farmer spoke of such unbearable conditions in his remarks. A graduate of Duke University and Harvard Medical School, the charismatic doctor stressed that all people have "basic rights that include the right to health care." No matter how impoverished a group of people or an individual may be, they have "the right to education, to housing, to security; they have the right to live."
In the 1980s Farmer recognized that the global community had "the lowest expectations when it comes to public health." In establishing his organization, Partners in Health, Farmer sought to raise these standards by proving that no task is too big, no problem too expensive to be left unsolved. Thus the doctor and his team travel to the harshest corners of the most impoverished nations to bring medical care and defend basic human rights. Send his workers to the most shattered corner of the world and "they will flourish," promised Farmer.
In the years since its establishment, Partners in Health has aimed to defend basic human rights and provide for those who are struggling. The foundation has ongoing projects across the globe stretching their resources from Haiti to Rwanda, and from Mexico to Kenya.
To be successful in any given area, Farmer stresses "the specifics of place." The organization "asks the people what they want in their community while also looking to promote a [healthcare] agenda," and does "everything we can to promote basic goals while thinking about what the people said they need in any given place in the world."
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