Dr.
Paul Farmer is an American anthropolotist and medical doctor who has devoted his
life to treating illnesses in the poorest parts of the world and challenging policies
that deprive poor people from adequate health care. He believes that access to
health care is a basic human right. A 2003 best-selling book entitled, Mountains
Beyond Mountains: the Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World,
helped bring attention to Dr. Farmer's work and the international charity,
Partners In Health, he helped to create.
While
conducting anthropology research in Haiti, Dr. Farmer was shocked by the lack
of medical care that the poor received. In 1987, he and some friends started a
charity hospital in central Haiti, providing free health care to the poor. Partners
in Health has grown into an international organization with projects in Peru,
Russia and Rwanda. In addition to overseeing these projects, Dr. Farmer is also
a professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard and an attending physician at Brigham
and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. The many awards he has received
for his work include the Heinz Award for the Human Condition, the Global Exchange
Human Rights Award, the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize and the American Medical
Association's International Physician Award.
