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In Person or On Paper, Meet Paul Farmer

Kristel Tonstad

Issue date: 10/4/06 Section: Entertainment
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Although there are no tickets left for the October 20 "Cambridge Reads" event, it may be worthwhile to stand in line and beg to get in to Memorial Hall to hear Paul Farmer and Tracy Kidder talk.

If you haven't yet picked up the event's featured book, "Mountains Beyond Mountains," it's time to start reading. The biography by Tracy Kidder tells the story of physician/anthropologist Paul Farmer, who teaches part-time at the Harvard Medical School but spends most of his time studying infectious disease at Brigham and Women's Hospital and treating patients in the clinic he started in rural Haiti. He is also founder and director of Partners in Health (www.pih.org), which works to combat AIDS, women's health problems and tuberculosis globally.

Farmer advocates what he calls the preferential option for the poor - a human rights-based approach to healthcare as opposed to providing barebones, "cost-effective" treatment. His experience and ideas are expounded in books he has written, such as "Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor." My boss recommended "Mountains Beyond Mountains", and it figured into my coming to KSG. Paul Farmer can revitalize your idealism, in person or on paper. The event will be held in Sanders Theatre (Memorial Hall) at 7:30 pm on October 20.
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