Paul Farmer, Harvard physician and anthropologist, widely recognized for his leadership in providing medical care to some of the poorest people around the world, died in his sleep of sudden cardiac arrest on February 21 in Butaro, a rural region of Rwanda. He was 62.
Farmer was a proponent of “liberation theology,” a movement in Christian theology, developed mainly by Latin American Roman Catholics, that emphasizes liberation from social, political, and economic oppression as an anticipation of ultimate salvation.
The world “lost a true humanist whose spirit and belief in the fundamental goodness of people inspired us all,” wrote Glen Gaulton, vice dean and faculty director of the Center for Global Health at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, in a tribute to Farmer. “... through his passion, his faith in humanity, and his belief in what we could accomplish together, the vision of health equity for all may continue to be realized. It’s now up to us to meet that goal by channeling that part of Paul’s moral fiber which lies deep within everyone he touched and the generations he inspired.”
Farmer chaired the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and was chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He also served as Special Adviser for Community-based Medicine and Lessons from Haiti to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
In Butaro in 2012, Farmer helped build a hospital with a cancer care center. Three years later, he founded the University of Global Health Equity in Kigali to teach Rwandan medical students.
Farmer cofounded Partners in Health, a Boston-based nonprofit established in 1987 with the goal of providing healthcare for the poor. The organization began its work in Haiti and expanded to 11 other countries, including Peru, Mexico and Cambodia, where it built hospitals and clinics that provide medical treatment and surgery rivaling services available in the wealthiest Western nations.
Born in Massachusetts in 1959, adversity in his youth helped Farmer learn to adapt to harsh conditions.
He found his calling in Haiti as a medical volunteer after graduating in 1982 from Duke University with a degree in medical anthropology. Distressed by the plight of poor Haitians who couldn’t afford healthcare, let alone quality care, he built a modest clinic in the village of Cange.
Farmer continued working in Haiti while a student at Harvard Medical School. He took his textbooks to Haiti and traveled to Boston for his exams and lab work.
To Farmer, few places offered a better opportunity than Haiti for practicing liberation theology.
Farmer’s honors include a 1993 MacArthur Fellowship and a 2020 Berggruen Prize, an annual $1 million award for major achievements in advancing ideas that shape the world.
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The Church publishes this blog to help create a better understanding of the freedom of religion and belief and provide news on religious freedom and issues affecting this freedom around the world.
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For more information visit the Scientology website or Scientology Network.
_______________
From its beginnings, the Church of Scientology has recognized that freedom of religion is a fundamental human right. In a world where conflicts are often traceable to intolerance of others’ religious beliefs and practices, the Church has, for more than 50 years, made the preservation of religious liberty an overriding concern.
The Church publishes this blog to help create a better understanding of the freedom of religion and belief and provide news on religious freedom and issues affecting this freedom around the world.
The Founder of the Scientology religion is L. Ron Hubbard and Mr. David Miscavige is the religion’s ecclesiastical leader
For more information visit the Scientology website or Scientology Network.
