Paul Farmer Invented a New Way of Caring for One Another

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/02/paul-farmer-global-health/622881/

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https://archive.fo/XACtH

Several years ago, Paul Farmer and I both spoke at a conference at Harvard on the history and future of global health. As our program finished, Paul was immediately inundated with a throng of students eager to speak with the guru of the field, the man who inspired us all and asked more of each of us. I shuffled off to speak with the few avoiding the crowd.

After Paul finished with the students, he came over to give me a hug, and we made small talk. Then he asked for a favor: Could he borrow a pair of socks? “Socks?” I asked. “Why yes,” he said, as if socks were a totally normal thing to be in need of in a lecture hall. He was in Boston briefly, stopping on his way from Geneva to Rwanda, and he had exhausted his supply. I walked over to my briefcase, pulled out a pair of socks, and handed them to Paul; he quickly put them away.

For years, I often carried an extra pair if I was going to see Paul, especially when he was just passing through town. He was so deeply focused on the people around him and making the world a better place that he often forgot what he needed to put on his own feet. Paul was the creator of the modern global-health movement. He was a founder of Partners in Health, which changed the way we all understood what it means to care for the world’s poor. In service of this role, he was a world traveler, always on the road, preaching his message of caring for all. Many of us who loved Paul had at least one occasion to “lend” him socks, knowing there was little risk of ever seeing those socks again.

Paul died yesterday, a shocking and devastating blow to his friends and the generations of people inspired by his work. Throughout his life, he fought against a counterproductive mindset that has haunted efforts of global health. The field that started as “tropical health” had been deeply rooted in the colonial context of caring for the subjects of Western rule. As European powers left their colonies in the global South, the nomenclature of the field changed to “international health,” but the field kept that deeply colonial framework—we the anointed global North providing charity for the uncivilized global South. Even now, the field often views its work from a perspective of constraint. With the limited resources we have, what is the most good we can do?

*snip*

[LuckyLib]

1. I first became familiar with Paul Farmer from a book

by Tracy Kidder: Mountains Beyond Mountains. An amazing man.