Person of the week

Before we get to the normal I give you this quote about grits spoken to me today at work: "I would rather eat horse shit than that." I agree.

Today I bring to your attention Paul Farmer:Dr. Farmer is, not to sound redundant but, a doctor. He is also an anthropologist. He is an attending doctor in Boston and a professor of medical anthropology at Harvard. He is the founder of Partners in Health and the subject of the book: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder. In this book his quest is made clear by this quote: "I can’t sleep. There’s always somebody not getting treatment. I can’t stand that." Basically, he is a medical and social bad ass.

In 1987, Farmer co-founded PIH, an organization that began in Haiti to give free care to patients and has evolved to a worldwide organization to treat the poor, especially in regards to tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. In 1988, Farmer received his M.D. from Harvard. Read those years again. While in medical school ... at Harvard... he co-founded and worked for PIH. Ridiculous.

On top of this, Dr. Farmer has been awarded a MacArthur "genius grant", a Conrad Hilton Humanitarian Award, and the American Medical Association's International Physician Award (among others). He is also a published author with at least eight books to his name, dealing with health and social issues.

If you have any interest in medicine or helping the poor, I urge you to read Mountains Beyond Mountains. If you want to go further, donate to PIH. When the world seems bleak and I begin to hate people, it is good to know that there are people like this in the world doing the work most needed.