I just finished (this morning) reading Tracy Kidder’s book, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest for Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World. To use an oft-abused cliche: if you read just one book this year (or in your life), read this book! I studied Paul Farmer’s work when I was a graduate student in anthropology and I had the opportunity to meet him after a talk he gave at my undergraduate school. He’s a remarkable individual and this biography of his life is simply superb. It’s almost a guide on how to be a human being. Farmer’s not about megalomania or personal enrichment. He’s just a person out there helping the poor because that’s what you need to do. Farmer, through his work, talks, and experiences, shows us that that many diseases are not individual problems but often arise out of larger economic and political inequalities. Treatments shouldn’t be based on cost-effectiveness or appropriate technology for the geographic or demographic group you’re working with. That just creates classes of people, creating artificial dichotomies of the deserving and undeserving. We’re all human beings and we all deserve access to quality heath care.

Two last things: (1) read some of Dr. Farmer’s own works, such as Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues; and (2) Tracy Kidder’s book is a fast & fabulous read. It’s a page-turner and you’ll fly through it and be glad you read it.