FACULTY PROFILE

As a kid growing up in Weekiwatchee, Florida, Paul E. Farmer says he knew he wanted to be a doctor.

Now he is Assistant Professor of Medical Anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and has co-founded an organization that brings health care services to poor communities in Haiti, Peru, Mexico, and the United States.

Outside of the classroom, he treats patients with infectious diseases and teaches students in infectious disease clinical rotations.

Last week, he and his wife, Didi Bartrand, a medical anthropologist from Haiti, moved into Eliot House. They are expecting a baby girl in January.

Spending seven months of the year working in Haiti and Peru, Farmer says the move is "a good way to be a part of the [Harvard] community."

Farmer, whose younger brother is the professional wrestler Cobra on World Championship Wrestling, says that he balances his work with action films.

Farmer says that he sees himself as a doctor first and a teacher and researcher second.

"A number of students are happy with these rankings," he says. "They would prefer me to rank the struggles of the destitute sick over problems of students. They respect that."

Farmer says that he is impassioned by his work in Haiti and Peru.

"The inequalities [in health care] one encounters going from rural Haiti to Harvard are shocking and that leads to a sense of indignation which is helpful," he says. "It fuels passion for work."

In response to what he saw, Farmer co-founded Partners in Health (PIH) in 1987 while still a Harvard Medical School student.

According to its mission statement, PIH's goal is "to make a 'preferential option for the poor in health care' by working with community-based organizations on projects designed to improve the health and well-being of people struggling against poverty."

PIH has established partnerships with sister organizations in Haiti, Peru, Mexico and the United States.

In Haiti, PIH and Haitian coworkers built a hospital in rural Cange. It serves more than 30,000 patients a year and is the premier medical facility in Haiti's central plateau, according to a PIH release.

In Peru, PIH is helping to combat multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and the myth that it cannot be treated in poor communities. Farmer reports that rates of these strains of TB are going down with long-term consistent use of drugs.

In Roxbury's Egleston Corner, PIH has focused on alleviating domestic violence as well as improving patient follow-ups and prescribed drug use, according to the release.

Farmer says PIH's work is "about people who suffer."

As a medical anthropologist, Farmer says he studies such suffering from an academic standpoint. He looks at how people explain suffering when the resources, technical capacity and goodwill exist to prevent it.

In his most recent book Women, Poverty and AIDS, he discusses why poor women of color have become victims of AIDS and how doctors, social workers, public health workers and others understand this phenomenon.

He teaches four classes for the Medical School: "Social Roots of Disease and Health"; "Culture, Poverty, and Infectious Disease", clinical rotations in infectious disease; and in Haiti, to one or two HMS students per term, "Medical Anthropology in a Community Health Center."

Kate D. Nash '99 took "Culture, Poverty and Infectious Disease" last spring. As the only undergraduate in the class, Nash says she was warmly welcomed by Farmer.

"His approach focuses more on the socio-cultural and socio-economic roots of disease transmission than the biological mechanisms of disease transmission," she says.

Farmer says he is happy with what he is doing right now.

"There are a lot of people who believe in justice, fairness and equality and want to make it a part of their life," he says. "I've been lucky that I've been able to incorporate that universal desire into my professional life."

He says he hopes to continue his work in this field and stay at Harvard for the next 30 to 40 years.

"I'll stay at Harvard until they fire me," he says.