At first I thought that this book was a work of fiction. It
seemed incredible to me that someone like Dr. Paul Farmer could actually exist
in real life. To be honest the best way to sum his character up comes up rather
late in the book, he lived his life as it should
be lived, but not the way we all ought
to live.
Farmer essentially dedicated his life to the Haitian poor
and treating them against all odds. He has a family but rarely sees them, he
spends so much time travelling. Splitting his time between treating everyone in
Haiti and seeing bigwigs to make policy decisions, he barely has time to sleep
and eat. However he has an incredible passion for the work, that much is
evident.
Kidder chronicles everything from Farmer’s early years and
schooling into founding Partners in Health and all of his attempts to treat
tuberculosis and AIDS. Despite his aging years, I’m willing to bet that he has
more energy than me. He strongly believes in treating everyone correctly, and
damn the price and the consequences.
Like I said, I hardly believed that this was a real person.
I’d strongly recommend this book to anyone wanting to go into medicine, again
because this is an example of what we should all be doing. This is the standard
that we will be comparing ourselves to, and an impossible one at that. But it’s
important, since we have to choose what battle we want to be fighting, and here
is an example of someone who fought with an incredible amount of gusto and
heart.
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