Dr. Li Interviews Paul Farmer, MD: Humanitarian, Global Health Visionary (Partners in Health)

Be present to other people, understand that your first effort and your second and your fifteenth will be imperfect, but just keep plugging away at it. Anybody can do these things, you know? I know that we often do not -- I often do not -- but anyone could do these things: to be present to others, to stick with something over a long time.

Paul Farmer is a doctor, anthropologist, Harvard professor, and “world-class Robin Hood” who has dedicated his life to improving health care for the world’s poorest people. Since 1987, he and Partners in Health, the nonprofit he co-founded, have revolutionized international health care, pioneering strategies for delivering novel, high-quality and community-based treatment in resource-poor settings. In 2010, when an earthquake demolished Haiti, Farmer was there. In 2014, when the Ebola virus erupted in Sierra Leone, Farmer was there, too. Whereas others might understandably flee such crises, Farmer runs toward them. Farmer once confessed, “I can’t sleep. There’s always somebody not getting treatment. I can’t stand that.” Known as “the man who would cure the world, his life story was captured by Tracy Kidder in the New York Times bestselling book, Mountains Beyond Mountains.

Moderator Cynthia Li opened this Awakin Call with the poem below, excerpted from Paul Farmer's new book, Fevers, Feuds and Diamonds: Ebola and The Ravages of History. It rang through the space like an invocation, and set the tone for a conversation that took many of us by surprise--Paul included."Coming into this interview I thought --they are going to drop my blood pressure down to 80 over palp-. They are so mellow -- but no! You've gotten me worked up with these questions. They are really the questions I struggle with the most -- and that I want to struggle with. So thank you."

The Way It Is, by William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.