Book Review: Mountains Beyond Mountains

I have a new hero; his name is Paul Farmer. After reading this book by Tracy Kidder (the full title is Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, I have a sense of Paul Farmer as being a kind of edgy, smart-alecky Mother Teresa. With his medical degree from Harvard and a lifelong interest in liberation theology and social justice issues, Farmer established Partners in Health, a non-profit dedicated to providing a preferential option for health care for the poor. Farmer also founded Zanmi Lasante, a health clinic in a poor rural area in Haiti. He is this incredibly intense, focused, and passionate character who has literally given all he has to improving health in less-developed countries. Plus--and I love this--the book describes his efforts to merge medicine and anthropology, in the quest to provide improved health outcomes while still respecting cultures and identities and beliefs. Farmer has done more in his lifetime than I can even comprehend, and Mountains Beyond Mountains takes you around the world with him, from Peru to Russia.

After reading Mountains Beyond Mountains, I am definitely planning on reading some of the books that Farmer has authored (like this one and this one), but I recommend Mountains Beyond Mountains. It's a good introduction to public health issues (particularly tuberculosis and AIDS), and provides a really compelling picture of the way economic inequality translates into increased risk of illness and death for the poor.

By the way, if you live in the Boston area, Dr. Farmer will be speaking at Boston University on January 19 for Martin Luther King Jr Day. Click here for more details about the event. Maybe I'll see you there...