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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
A very interesting book about a topic I knew nothing about. I am in constant awe of people who give everything of themselves to make the world a better place. Recommended for those who enjoy non-fiction.
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I enjoyed this book, but it got a little textbook-ish for me. Still inspiring. Tracy Kidder is coming to St. Peter next month, so I'm excited to see him.
This book challenged my perception of putting in a "good days work." Dr Paul Farmer went above and beyond what is considered the normal call of duty to do the work he was called to do. His life is an example, but not necessarily an attainable one for most people. His work caused him to sacrifice in other areas of life, but from the story told in this book, it was for the greater good of others. Very good read.
hopeful
informative
sad
medium-paced
I lived on the Dominican Republic/Haiti border for a few years as a child, so the initial description in this book of how Haiti is fucked doesn't come as a surprise. I mean. Just about everything that could possibly go wrong on the road to becoming a self-sustaining country has just been ripped from them. (ASK ME MY FEELINGS ON THE LATEST COUP THERE AGH, AGH, OH MY GOD, AGH.)
Haiti: fucked. CHECK.
The book then goes on to describe the life and training of Paul Farmer. Paul Farmer, who managed to commute to the clinic he was running in rural Haiti while in medical school. On an apparently weekly/monthly/VERY OFTEN basis. As some one who is contemplating medical school- I kind of hope to cook some of my own meals, while studying. Perhaps I will play a game of soccer or two in the four years I spend hunched over textbooks, but my mind is completely blown by the idea of maintaining practical work (in a foreign country) while taking classes (LET ALONE GETTING A PHD CONCURRENTLY). I honestly can hardly wrap my head around it.
Paul Farmer: the kind of great-hearted genius we hold up as an example, but do not actually emulate. CHECK.
(I am coming to terms with the fact that this review is all about me, me, me.) This is the kind of work I want to do, this "preferential option for the poor" that Kidder details in this book. This is absolutely what I want to do, but I reached the half-way point in this book (You know, the point at which this tiny three-person-single-man-funded-non-profit takes on multi-drug resistant TB in Peru.) totally discouraged. Evidently, it takes super-human commitment, brains, understanding, courage, gumption and craziness to take on the worlds' ills. I can't be that person. Honestly, I don't even want to be that person.
That isn't what the book is saying, obviously, but that's absolutely what I was reading. The book goes on to talk about the expansion of the crusade against MDR in Russian prisons, the expansion of the Haitian clinic (now with operating theater!) and it was interesting, if ultimately discouraging. Then I got to this line, where Paul Farmer is frustrated at some student email and says (I'm paraphrasing) "I'm the model for what needs to be done, not for how to do it."
I am really not sure how I managed to miss that, three quarters of the way through the book, but the sigh of relief when I finally, finally figured it out was profound. Of course this isn't the only way to do it. "It" here being leveling the playing field of medicine, or caring for the poor, or being a decent human being in the world, or some combination thereof. But it's important, and it needs to be done, and there's really no excuse for not being part of it.
Mountains Beyond Mountains: Depressing, but wildly inspirational for a wanna-be rural doctor. CHECK.
I finished this book sitting backstage for the dress rehearsal of the show I'm in- and I could hardly go on and talk about atomic energy. It is a book exactly written for me, and this was the exact moment to read it.
Haiti: fucked. CHECK.
The book then goes on to describe the life and training of Paul Farmer. Paul Farmer, who managed to commute to the clinic he was running in rural Haiti while in medical school. On an apparently weekly/monthly/VERY OFTEN basis. As some one who is contemplating medical school- I kind of hope to cook some of my own meals, while studying. Perhaps I will play a game of soccer or two in the four years I spend hunched over textbooks, but my mind is completely blown by the idea of maintaining practical work (in a foreign country) while taking classes (LET ALONE GETTING A PHD CONCURRENTLY). I honestly can hardly wrap my head around it.
Paul Farmer: the kind of great-hearted genius we hold up as an example, but do not actually emulate. CHECK.
(I am coming to terms with the fact that this review is all about me, me, me.) This is the kind of work I want to do, this "preferential option for the poor" that Kidder details in this book. This is absolutely what I want to do, but I reached the half-way point in this book (You know, the point at which this tiny three-person-single-man-funded-non-profit takes on multi-drug resistant TB in Peru.) totally discouraged. Evidently, it takes super-human commitment, brains, understanding, courage, gumption and craziness to take on the worlds' ills. I can't be that person. Honestly, I don't even want to be that person.
That isn't what the book is saying, obviously, but that's absolutely what I was reading. The book goes on to talk about the expansion of the crusade against MDR in Russian prisons, the expansion of the Haitian clinic (now with operating theater!) and it was interesting, if ultimately discouraging. Then I got to this line, where Paul Farmer is frustrated at some student email and says (I'm paraphrasing) "I'm the model for what needs to be done, not for how to do it."
I am really not sure how I managed to miss that, three quarters of the way through the book, but the sigh of relief when I finally, finally figured it out was profound. Of course this isn't the only way to do it. "It" here being leveling the playing field of medicine, or caring for the poor, or being a decent human being in the world, or some combination thereof. But it's important, and it needs to be done, and there's really no excuse for not being part of it.
Mountains Beyond Mountains: Depressing, but wildly inspirational for a wanna-be rural doctor. CHECK.
I finished this book sitting backstage for the dress rehearsal of the show I'm in- and I could hardly go on and talk about atomic energy. It is a book exactly written for me, and this was the exact moment to read it.
Definitely worth reading. Great story,inspiring but the book became a bit tedious and repetitive towards the end.
Journalist Tracy Kidder writes the biography of Harvard-trained medical anthropologist, Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, an organization which provides health care in some of the poorest nations. Farmer acts to value all life equally including valuing other children as much as his own. In a "This I Believe" essay for NPR, Farmer offers his view of utopia:
"That goal is nothing less than the refashioning of our world into one in which no one starves, drinks impure water, lives in fear of the powerful and violent, or dies ill and unattended. Of course such a world is a utopia, and most of us know that we live in a dystopia. But all of us carry somewhere within us the belief that moving away from dystopia moves us towards something better and more humane."
The description of Farmer's extraordinary devotion to a core belief and corresponding course of action brought to mind Nelson Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom." It was also interesting to note that Farmer was inspired both by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and War and Peace.
"That goal is nothing less than the refashioning of our world into one in which no one starves, drinks impure water, lives in fear of the powerful and violent, or dies ill and unattended. Of course such a world is a utopia, and most of us know that we live in a dystopia. But all of us carry somewhere within us the belief that moving away from dystopia moves us towards something better and more humane."
The description of Farmer's extraordinary devotion to a core belief and corresponding course of action brought to mind Nelson Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom." It was also interesting to note that Farmer was inspired both by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and War and Peace.