Generally described as a modern-day Albert Schweitzer, Dr. Farmer was a physician, a humanitarian and, by all accounts, an nearly otherworldly drive whose aspirations for world public well being appeared unattainable till he confirmed they have been inside attain. He was the topic of a broadly learn 2013 e-book by Tracy Kidder, “Mountains Past Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Remedy the World.”
Dr. Farmer first traveled to Haiti, one of many poorest nations on the earth, as a volunteer within the early Nineteen Eighties, simply as he launched into his research at Harvard Medical Faculty. He went on to discovered a community of 15 clinics and hospitals that now serve greater than 1.3 million individuals in essentially the most distant reaches of the nation, in accordance with Companions in Well being. Dr. Farmer was personally engaged in that medical care, at occasions trekking many miles to make a single home name.
His work in Haiti expanded into the worldwide mission of Companions in Well being, which immediately works in a dozen places throughout Africa, Central Asia, Latin America and the USA, the place the group has assisted lately with the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“He actually stands out as some of the influential world well being figures of our time, and I don’t suppose that’s a hyperbole,” Anthony S. Fauci, director of the Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Ailments and the chief medical adviser to President Biden, mentioned in an interview.
“He sacrificed private consolation to enter the trenches with the individuals he cared for,” Fauci continued, describing Dr. Farmer as a “once-in-a-lifetime particular person.”
“He beloved the individuals he took care of,” Fauci mentioned, “and so they beloved him again.”
An entire obituary will likely be revealed quickly.