To Repair the World: Paul Farmer Speaks to the Next Generation

by Paul Farmer, Bill Clinton (Foreword), Jonathan L. Weigel (Editor)

Here, for the first time, is a collection of short speeches by the charismatic doctor and social activist Paul Farmer. One of the most passionate and influential voices for global health equity and social justice, Farmer encourages young people to tackle the greatest challenges of our times. Engaging, often humorous, and always inspiring, these speeches bring to light the brilliance and force of Farmer’s vision in a single, accessible volume.

A must-read for graduates, students, and everyone seeking to help bend the arc of history toward justice, To Repair the World:

-Challenges readers to counter failures of imagination that keep billions of people without access to health care, safe drinking water, decent schools, and other basic human rights;

-Champions the power of partnership against global poverty, climate change, and other pressing problems today;

-Overturns common assumptions about health disparities around the globe by considering the large-scale social forces that determine who gets sick and who has access to health care;

-Discusses how hope, solidarity, faith, and hardbitten analysis have animated Farmer’s service to the poor in Haiti, Peru, Rwanda, Russia, and elsewhere;

-Leaves the reader with an uplifting vision: that with creativity, passion, teamwork, and determination, the next generations can make the world a safer and more humane place.

Genres: Nonfiction, Medicine, Health, Science, Anthropology, Politics, Medical

294 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Paul Farmer was an American medical anthropologist and physician. He was Professor of Medical Anthropology at Harvard Medical School and Founding Director of Partners In Health. Among his books are Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues (1999), The Uses of Haiti (1994), and AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame (1992). Farmer was the recipient of numerous awards, including a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award and the Margaret Mead Award for his contributions to public anthropology.

Farmer was born in the U.S.A. in 1959. He married Didi Bertrand Farmer in 1996 and they had three children. He died in Rwanda in 2022, at the age of 62.

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Paul Farmer is one of my heroes. I generally like his writing and am in concert with his philosophy. However, this book is a collection of speeches – a number given at graduations and convocations, others at conferences. There is a similarity and lack of depth that seems to go along with these kind of talks and I simply grew tired of reading the same thing over and over.

If you have not read works by Paul Farmer do NOT start here. Start with another book.

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an inspiring read! So many things in this book made me think, "yes, yes, yes"! Paul Farmer is my new hero, or, perhaps more accurately, I want to be him when I grow up. I found so many things in this book inspiring - his spirituality, his view of medicine, his hopes for the world - it makes me interested in learning more about him and his organization (Partners in Health).

This book is a compilation of speeches, mostly commencement addresses, which is both a really nice format and a little tiring. Farmer edited it and put them into sections based on subject and wrote a short introduction to each. It's nice to have short little bits that have a clear beginning and end (like a collection of essays), but sometimes the repetition of graduation speech jokes (he has a lot of them) was a little tiring. As can be expected, there are also a lot of references to the events and situations surrounding each of his speeches, but as some of them are more than ten years old, I wasn't always entirely up to speed. Overall, though, I think that this book serves as a great introduction to Farmer and his work.

One of the most interesting and meaningful parts of this book, and Farmer's work in general, is his views on aid and accompaniment. After my trip to El Salvador (and learning about the concept of accompaniment through the church and the organization SHARE), I was concerned about the mission and form of Partners in Health. This book really explains that they (and Farmer himself) intend to be exactly what they say - Partners. He explains that he and his colleagues really intend to share in the future of those they serve and walk together every step of the way. He shares that the ideas of liberation theology have been critical in both his own spiritual journey and in forming PIH.

Most of all, Farmer's stories and thoughts made me excited about going into medicine. He talks about accompaniment on both a large scale and a small one - he also refers to this as "social medicine" - and the importance of really getting to know patients in order to understand the barriers that stand in their way to health (both abroad and in the US). Many people have suggested that doctors aren't the ones who really get to know their patients, but that's not the vision that Farmer has for the world of modern health care, which I found really exciting. I can't wait to read more of his work!

[Sivananthi T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Farmer is a medical doctor and anthropologist, who has a vision of 'healing the world'. Literally. Having founded Partners in Health, he has a vision of bringing comprehensive medical care even to the poorest of the poor. This is a collection of addresses he has made to graduating medical students. Farmer speaks of the need to have a global health approach, and a strong critic of the neo-liberal approach.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's amazing when you read Paul Farmer and realize what he has accomplished and then you are left to question why things can't be better. The excuses fall away rapidly.

[Luke Prohaska · Rating 4 out of 5]

To Repair the World: Paul Farmer Speaks to the Next Generation is Paul Farmer at his best: captivating, intelligent, witty, compassionate, and uncompromising. This novel is a collection of his graduation and commencement speeches at universities and post-graduate institutions over the years. It's hard to review a book that's not really a book but instead just a collection of public addresses, so I'll capture my main highlights and takeaways below.

-I really think Dr. Farmer gets it right when he focuses on accompaniment as a policy in alleviating poverty and serving the poor. This theory of accompaniment of the poor has its roots in liberation theology, which has inspired Dr. Farmer as well as many other religious and secular organizations throughout their work. Accompaniment has a "basic, everyday meaning" to Dr. Farmer and is "to go somewhere with him or her, to break bread together, to be present on a journey with a beginning and an end." We can make policy that advocates for the most vulnerable among us, and that's a good thing, but until we intimately understand the realities of the most marginalized, our policy will fall short because even our far-reaching contemporary technical prowess can't solve human problems without interpersonal relationship. In Farmer's words, "...we need living links between our health care institutions and the communities we serve."

-Dr. Farmer extends his theory of accompaniment to include routine patients he encounters in his practice. He's a big advocate for making home visits to patients when they're recovering and serving them in even the most mundane of activities, such as washing their dishes. I'm positive this is easier said than done; this advice is coming from the man that established a revolutionary clinic in a country with the worst health outcomes in nearly every metric on the weekends, while at the same time traveled back during the weeks to attend medical school at Harvard. He probably found time to visit patients during 100-hour work weeks in residency too where virtually everyone else would be simply trying to survive. However, I believe we could all extend this ideology even one step further and accompany all we meet: our friends, our co-workers, our colleagues. Precious few will achieve Farmer's standard of accompaniment, but we all can strive.

-Dr. Farmer exhorts all the students he speaks to that they must "counter failures of imagination." I think Farmer can be characterized by asking what needs to be done, not by what seems feasible by professional standards. There are countless examples of Farmer being told by the "experts" that something was not "cost-effective, "sustainable", or even "feasible." But when the issue pertains to human lives being lost by preventable means, Farmer never took no for an answer, and he saved innumerable lives as a result. It was a good reminder for me, and all young people in the world, not to ask "what is logical in this situation?" and instead ask, "what must occur to evince justice?"

-Dr. Farmer is extremely well-read and well-spoken. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see that he had upwards of 100 books, articles, and speeches in his bibliography that he quoted from in his addresses. I found myself looking up words a fair amount, too; the man found a way to use "avuncular" (suggestive of an uncle in kindliness or geniality) fluidly in a speech. His command of the analogy also helps him to illustrate his points and make them memorable. He delivers his speeches in an extremely accessible, understandable, and non-confrontational way, despite addressing some challenging issues and subject matter. I already knew of many of his professional accomplishments from Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, but I was further convinced by his linguistic prowess that he might be the ultimate renaissance man.

Ultimately, I gave this book 4 stars because it's 200 pages of graduation and commencement speeches. I think Farmer did an admirable job of varying his anecdotes, analogies, and cited sources, but the truths he wanted to convey were generally the same, which made the speeches more repetitive as the book stretched on. This certainly isn't his fault, but rather a shortcoming of the book format. Overall, though, a great read.

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Farmer must be a pro at commencement speeches after being given the privilege hundreds of times.

Let me distill his wise lessons down to some of my favourites:

MLK quotes “Anyone can be great, because anyone can serve”

The Drum Major Instinct: The instinct many of those who have been socialized to succeed posses. The desire to lead and to excel for personal success. The yearning of recognition. Let us be wary of the path the Drum Major Instinct can lead us. But it isn’t all doom and gloom, for this same instinct can fuel the dedication of our life to the service of others.

Our opinions come into age with 3 stages:

Epiphany: The sudden realization.
Metanoia: The act of changing one’s world view. Praxis: Acting in accordance with this change in world view.

Here is my epiphany: I am in a position to do work in whatever it is I want to
Metanoia: Because of this, I should seek to dedicate my endeavours towards the service of those in need
Praxis: To be continued

[Gigi Hendrickson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book, but it was not life-altering or all-consuming. Because this book is a series of brief lectures, it needed to be conceptually extraordinary to make up for the lack of data and research I usually look for in non-fiction books. I love Paul Farmer and I think this book not rocking my world was largely due to prior exposure to a lot of the concepts covered in the lectures. Would recommend to someone just getting into global health and systems-based approaches like Partners In Health’s, but not to someone who wants to read to deeply understand an issue.

[Meghan Burke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for work. I respect Paul Farmer but I was surprised to feel lukewarm at best about this book. Maybe it’s just constantly re-reading the eventually tiring format of commencement speeches. I think I’d hoped instead that this was a single-take plea to young people, rather than dozens scattered over more than a decade. I was also surprised to find him kind of cringey at times. Not a book I’d recommend to others, though indeed there are good nuggets in here.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this collection of speeches - you’re lying to yourself if you think I’d give basically anything by Paul Farmer less than 5 stars! I found the sections on service, solidarity, and social justice, as well as spirituality and accompaniment as policy particularly relevant. I would wholeheartedly agree with Farmer that “although all of us can learn a great deal from theology in general, liberation theology raises the right questions for global health work.”

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of speeches given by Paul Farmer, some I'd rate 3 stars and some 5 stars. But overall, it is Paul Farmer, and he does have a message that is incredibly important for everyone. His words are always so inspiring; he truly fills you with a desperate need and overwhelming passion to try to make the world a more just place.

[Atharva Ameria · Rating 5 out of 5]

How I wish my college arranged for such speakers during commencement!! Dr. Paul Farmer is a giant in public health and it tells with the way he speaks and writes about it. Speeches mentioned in the book talks about the tremendous potential of modern medicine, equity in health and how failures of imagination has resulted in poor people being deprived of quality health care. Paul talks about accompaniment which is at the heart of his organisation; Partners In Health. On equity, he talks about how we are urged to avoid "wasting" resources on groups of people who are not expected to make significant improvement. The medical profession has too often left equity for others to worry about. Unless we make equity our watchword, we become party to a process that promises to reserve its finest care for those who need it least, leaving billions of sick people without decent medical care. Paul also shares his experiences working with young doctors in Haiti and Rwanda and he makes valuable observations about their general psyche. It is indisputable that the social perceptions of what a person is or is not influences the availability, delivery and outcome of medical care. There is an urgency to shape the medical profession so that there is commitment to equitable service in the face of growing inequalities of outcome. It is almost unbelievable to think that we have to spend an endless amount of time arguing that food is the proper treatment for malnutrition. The complexity of hospital-based care is one of the reasons public health starts with the low hanging fruit: vaccines, family planning, prenatal care, bednets, hand washing and latrines. Talking about the future of medicine, Dr Paul explains how the relationship between provider and patient affords an intimacy despite the social disparities one sees in a hospital. The extraordinary promise of modern medicine will remain unmet until the sickest patients receive care of the highest possible quality. The plagues of the poor don't seem to interest industry, the press or even basic science. Visits to the lifeworlds of the sick help us see how terribly behind we are in the equity arena. In one of the most touching moments of the book, Dr Paul writes, most of the boundaries are ones we create ourselves. They're boundaries we erect in order to lesson our pain, not the pain of others. In part 3 of the book called Health, Human Rights and Unnatural Disasters, Dr Paul writes, to make public health matter, we need to remember that rapid advances in medicine and technology must be tied to an equity plan if we are to imagine a future with fewer stupid, premature deaths. When we are bold in pressing for the right to health care rather than arguing how best to spend paltry sums that could never do the job, or even half the job, we advance the cause of public health. The "reasonable" people's failure is obvious. With the best intentions and a naive lack of realism, they think that with a little reason, they can bend back into position the framework that has got out of joint. In the lack of vision, they want to do justice to all sides and so the conflicting forces wear them down with nothing achieved. Disappointed by the world's unreasonableness, they see themselves condemned to ineffectiveness; they step aside in resignation or collapse before the stronger party. Doing social justice work even in the arena of healthcare for the poor brings risks: it demands that we question ourselves when we become too reasonable, when we replace what must be done with what's feasible. Speaking on spirituality and Justice, Dr Paul says, unless we link our spirituality to justice and to the good works we know to be necessary in a world in which a billion people go without adequate food, clean water, health care and a modicum of justice, we will have, as was noted 2000 years ago, nothing but dead faith. We will ultimately have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appaling silence of the good people. Talking about accompaniment as policy, Paul explains how increase in bureaucratic efficiency come at the price of decreasing the ability of human actors to be flexible, to respond to problems creatively and promptly. In other words, as institutions are rationalized and as platforms of accountability are strengthened, the potential for accompaniment can be threatened since it is, as noted, open-minded, egalitarian, elastic and nimble.

All is not lost in Paul's world and he calls for the youth of medicine TO REPAIR THE WORLD.

[Brittany · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this from a goodreads giveaway.
I had never heard of Paul Farmer before I entered the giveaway (I'm ashamed to say) and was excited to dig into To Repair the World. He's a brilliant writer. This book contains a series of speeches given at prestigious medical schools and schools of public health. You can tell that Paul really, truly cares about getting health care for those who need it most and wants to inspire the younger generation (specifically those in the medical field) that they too can make a difference.

[Anna Tramposch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the sentiments — Paul Farmer is a brilliant champion for the poor. But this collection of essays got repetitive and I was bored 2/3 of the way in. I I think it could have been a handful of essays shorter.

[David Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to this book while on a canoe trip in the Adirondack Mountains of NY. Listening to Dr. Farmers wisdom, wit and inspiration in the company of loons, stunning sunsets and still water made it all the more profound for me. The book is a selection of speeches, mostly at college commencements, by Paul Farmer. Farmer is an inspiring doctor who grew up poor in a trailer park who earned a BA from Duke and MD and PhD from Harvard.

Dr. Farmer is one of the founders of Partners in Health, a global nonprofit health care service. He is also a tremendous salesman for his cause, and compelling orator with an engaging wit. His best speeches in the book are given to other doctors or med school graduates where he confronts the inequities in the US health care system.

In his speech to Harvard Medical School graduates he addresses the pharmacological proliferation of America, the short-dating of medications for profit versus patients, and even questioning the work ethic of physicians compared to other fields. He advises the newly minted Ivy League graduates “It’s not about us, our incomes, or our sense of personal efficacy, but what happens to our patients.”

Farmer addresses the dark side of progress and how terribly behind we are in equity both globally but also in the United States. In “The Tetanus Speech” Dr. Farmer declares that regardless of all of our money we don’t have a health care system we can rely on, in Miami or central Haiti. In “Health Human Rights and Natural Disasters” he discusses linking health care technology to health equity and not just better medicine for a few. He quotes, John Kenneth Galbraith, who despairs of the rising inequality throughout the world despite national income changes, or as pediatrician Paul Wise says, the “outcome gap.”

Dr. Farmer addresses the issue of health care as a right vs. a commodity to purchase for those who can afford it, arguing for the right to health care rather than spending paltry sums that would never do half the job. He concludes one speech on service and social justice by stating “It is the poor, wounded, vulnerable people who can reveal the world to us. Then he quotes Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who from his Nazi prison cell asked, ‘Who stands fast?’”

Quotes

“I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.”

“I am back to a spirituality that draws on the world around us, with all its fragile and threatened beauty, and not on the worst that we humans can do to each but rather the best. Instead of vengeance, cruelty, and indifference, the spirituality of justice leads us down a different path. What can we do to restore, to rebuild, a broken world? What can we do to promote peace and beauty in a world in which the poor especially are exposed to violence and endless affront? These are rhetorical questions, of course, but they are as spiritual as they are pragmatic. I will close by noting that they are fundamentally questions of justice. I confess that I have long been more comfortable with questions of justice than with the topic of spirituality. That is because I have seen notions of faith and spirituality perverted in our affluent and often imperial country, a country in which unjust wars are waged and even called “Crusades.” I have felt alienated from faith as it is portrayed in our country. So I was stumped as to how to close this sermon when I wrote it en route from Rwanda to the United States. But just last week, upon returning, I received a book sent to me by Jim Wallis, an evangelical preacher who terms himself a progressive. I read his book, The Great Awakening, over the past few days, and it helped me reconcile my doubts about our right to invoke faith and spirituality in a world of great injustice. “The Religious Right is over,” writes Wallis with what I hope is warranted confidence, “but the revival may be just beginning—a revival of justice.”16 His theology eased my angst: “Two of the great hungers in our world today are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social justice. The connection between the two is the one the world is waiting for, especially the new generation. And the first hunger will empower the second.”

“Unless we link our spirituality to justice and to the good works we know to be necessary in a world in which a billion people go without adequate food, clean water, health care, and a modicum of justice, we will have, as was noted two thousand years ago, nothing but dead faith. I share your optimism about the sea change now before us and about the possibility of a spirituality of justice and equality and am honored to be here today.”

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're some sort of student remotely interested in public/international/global health & medicine, this book is for you. For everyone else, the title & description is a bit misleading in that 90% of the "collection of short speeches" are just commencement speeches; and as graduation goes, 50% of the content is a meta-commentary and jab at the speech itself, references to specific college cultures, and a whole lot of "Webster's dictionary defines...".

Pushing all that aside, Dr. Farmer's writing gives me the vibe of an old attending physician delighting to share his wisdom and quirky stories with his students. Points I enjoyed:

On poverty:
- Making it a habit to pay attention to poverty and inequity: poverty of resources vs. poverty of compassion towards the un/maltreated.
- Looking to martyrs of faith as the refusers of "soul anesthesia" a fruitful intersection of faith and medicine.
- Framing questions: "why do good people suffer" to "why do poor people suffer"; feed the hungry, but also ask why hunger exists; and heal the sick, but also ask why they are sick.
- Challenging the idea that anyone is "too poor to treat."
- Microbial poverty: since diseases have preference for the poor, even more so should we.
- The section on reflections of death and dying - particularly of loss, suffering, and grief in the context of premature, preventable death - was very good.

On healthcare delivery:
- Biggest breakthroughs in diagnostics/treatment means little to nothing if they cannot be delivered to the patients they were designed for; privileging ability to pay over healthcare need.
- "It is indisputable that social perceptions of what a person is or is not influence the availability, delivery, and outcome of medical care."
- Bridging the gap between medicine and public health will bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
- While I chuckle at the idea of donating a second kidney to save one more life, I did love the verbiage to "not just do good, but to do better."

On proximity:
- "Accompanyteurs": accompaniment is not just humanely good practice. It is best practice.
- "We cure, prevent, ease, consult- but also care and pray and heal (body and soul). These are our rewards."
- "I didn't sign up for earthquakes."
- "Suffer with your patients."
- Faith perverted by the affluent, gets its chance at salvation thanks to social justice.
- "From aid to accompaniment."

Some points I push back on:
- The idea of "general anesthesia for the soul on structural violence" versus "event violence": could there also be a time course effect to consider? Acute pathology certainly grabs the attention of the provider, but the normalization/adaptation of chronic conditions is hard to keep shocked by?
- I'm not too sure of the phrase "weapons of mass salvation" as if a tetanus shot is going to cure absolutely everything, and that particular word carries heavy, colonial baggage. Imagining "a Manhattan project for the diseases of the poor" is quite dreamy.

[Rommel A · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally enjoyed Farmer's commencement speeches/sermons. He has a lot of good ideas that are thought provoking. He talks about the idea of "failure of imagination" as one the reasons holding back progress in developing health care and addressing health equity. This stems from his experience practicing medicine in Haiti and Rwanda, where he worked on the ground with his Partners in Health team to address solutions for poverty and broken healthcare systems. The concepts he discusses made me critically think of how to tackle issues where cynicism holds back the solution. For example, it was interesting that he brought up this idea that in a society that cares about efficiency, the sad reality is that mindset is what causes people to think that helping the poor suffering with HIV/AIDS is "not cost-effective." He states that it's the "failure of imagination" to see the importance of basic human rights. That struck me because in a world where we care about our own goals and efficiently climbing our career ladder, we lose our sense of humanness.

As a commencement speaker, he urges his audience to critically self-reflect on their journeys going forward. For medical students, he challenges graduates to consider taking the red pill to see the world of the sick as it is today - as painful choice to help those suffering in poverty and with chronic illnesses, rather than taking the road of high-salary medicine and glamour. He challenges students to take the spiritual path of justice, forgiveness, and selflessness, rather than perpetuating a broken system of vengeance, cruelty, and indifference.

As someone who is new to global health, this book is packed with novel ideas that are new to me in medicine - and rallies an inspiring urge to self-reflect and ask, "What can I do for the world around me?"

The downside as other reviewers have mentioned that these commencement speeches were written to be catchy, straight to the point, with the take-home messages packaged as ready to go for his audience (i.e., graduating classes within the 2010ish decade). There are several elements of his talks that are repeated throughout his speeches. For example, Farmer can be self-deprecating, he mentions that schools could have chosen a more entertaining speaker, but instead were "stuck" with him. I appreciate his humbleness, but this seems to be a reoccurring joke in the beginning of most of his speeches. I can see how he needs to add this to talks to establish a more relatable character on stage for his audience.

Though the speeches are formatted into general themes (as 4 different sections throughout the book) to have a sense of narrative, reading each speech one after the other can be a choppy sequence, which affected the flow of the book for me.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I admire Paul Farmer’s vision, work, and heart. He is the one who first inspired me to get a Master’s in Public health. He died 2 years ago, but his work and legacy live on. This book is a collection of his speeches given at college graduations. He speaks of the responsibility of the privileged to work to repair the world by increasing opportunity, equality, cooperation, abundance, and justice. I most appreciated his discussions on “accompaniment” (accompanying and supporting the poor, rather than sending aid) and “failures of imagination” (lack of vision to see a better world). With that said, I actually didn’t find his speeches very inspiring. If you want to learn more about him and his work, I would recommend the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder.

-“The choices before you are not between good and bad, but doing good and doing better.”

-Moving from aid to “accompaniment”: “Accompaniment is an elastic term. It has a basic everyday meaning. To accompany someone is to go somewhere with him or her, to break bread together, to be present on a journey with a beginning and an end. There’s an element of mystery, of openness, of trust in accompaniment. The companion, the accompanator says, ‘I’ll go with you and support you on your journey, wherever it leads. I’ll share your fate for a while, and by a while I don’t mean a little while.’ Accompaniment is about sticking with a task until it’s deemed completed, not by the accompanator, but by the person being accompanied.”

-I loved his discussions on helping the poor, accompaniment, and proximity: “To opt for the poor is thus to place ourselves there—to accompany the poor person in his or her life, death, and struggle for survival…As a society we are happy to help and serve the poor as long as we don’t have to walk with them where they walk, that is, as long as we can minister to them from our safe enclosures. The poor then can remain passive objects of our actions rather than friends, companeros, and companeras with whom we interact.” - Professor Roberto Goizueta

-Martin Luther King – “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve.”

-MLK asked that no mention of his many awards and honors be made at his funeral, but instead only share that he strove to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to stand up for peace, and to love and serve humanity.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was "introduced" to Paul Farmer when I read my daughter's copy of "Mountains Beyond Mountains" written about him and his development of Partners in Health. So I was excited to see that my local library had a book of speeches written by Dr. Farmer.

I'm drawn to reading about his work and find his understanding of service to the poor to be so compelling. He advocates an idea of "accompaniment" rather than just pouring money money at people from afar. This seems inherently human, right, and good. He always says that while Partners in Health is a secular organization, many of its leaders are inspired by liberation theology. This also resonates with me in a way that Christianity-as-currently-practiced-in-the-US does not. His work focuses on a "preferential option for the poor" because they need it most.

Dr. Farmer's writing makes me wonder what I should do with the next phase of my life. As an almost empty nester I am at a crossroads, a natural change. Reading a book like this makes me look within to ask what I can do.

[Faith Fox · Rating 1 out of 5]

you’re not gonna want to read my review, oh well.

The world has lots of horrible issues, and doing good to help is good and we can and should make improvements, but there’s a reason the rich keep hiring him to speak at these schools… you can say what you will and disagree with my review but doing good to look good isn’t what I’m about.Issues he did discuss but I cannot say this book is something I would recommend people to align with. There is more to fixing these issues, this is obviously beneficial to the rich people running these events even with all their rules. There are doctors that go about their work with their nose in the air and don’t take the time to care for their patients until they are forced to but will take all the credit for others ideas and hard work and there are people that have compassion for others and do the hard dirty work but never get credit and don’t need it.

[Keenan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to this book through Tracy Kidder's book about Paul Farmer and his Partners In Health foundation, titled Mountains Beyond Mountains. In that book we see the history and buildup of a public health NGO that emphasizes comprehensive healthcare and treatments that go against the grain of our current “cost-efficient” aid organizations, showing what wonderfully positive results come about from caring and involved accompaniment (not aid, as Farmer points out many times in this speech collection).

This collection of speeches from the man himself are the perfect accompaniment to Kidder's book. Liberation theology, the duty doctors have to their patients, and the importance of social equity towards a healthier world are lessons we need to hear every day until the world is repaired, and are vital lessons for any young person commencing their life of privilege in the world today.

[Danny Brambila-Diaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was given this book as a "college-send-a-way" gift following my graduation by a teacher of mine - and I can't express how greatful I am for it.

Although I can't say much about the "plot" of this book considering that it's a collection of Paul Farmer's graduation speeches. However, I will note that I found this book to be truly inspiring - especially considering the time in which I read these speeches. I won't lie, my first semester in college was lowkey a flop, and I was questioning my ability to thrive both in undergraduate and later on in medical school. However, one line in particular made me reflect and in a way, gave me the confidence to continue pursuing my goals:

"Science is what will make medicine truly powerful, but being and persistent is what makes medicine a vocation"

Hell yeah, Paul.

[Fern F · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of Paul Farmer's speeches (primarily commencement addresses) given throughout the 2000s and early 2010s. These speeches touch on the question of social justice, primarily how to expand access to good healthcare and lifesaving drugs to the people who most need them -- but also, how there's something cruel in claims that it's not economically viable to provide, for instance, AIDS medications to certain populations. The speeches are rousing, motivating one to go forth and bring justice, but there's also something depressing in realizing that the issues highlighted in Farmer's speeches, primarily health disparities, have become even more entrenched since the 2000s and the pandemic has only worsened the situation. The work continues.

[Hanna Grioni · Rating 4 out of 5]

-format of a collection of speaking made it difficult to engage with, really limits the flow of the book
-other works about Paul Farmer cast him in a serious light, it was nice to see some of his dorky, more light hearted personality come through
-reading this book in 2025 with some of the speeches being 20 years old is an interesting experience, from the way that Paul Farmer talks about global warming to war to medicine he was very progressive on all fronts- ahead of his time
-part IV was by far my favorite section of the book (I’m glad I didn’t give up before this point), Making Hope and History Rhyme made my heart ache for all of the things he hoped for in 2008 that we are nowhere near accomplishing

[Cathy Miller-Temme · Rating 5 out of 5]

This eloquent speaker has given me a new way to look at aid to third world nations and the increasingly urgent need to provide healthcare to those who need it MOST! It is eye-opening and heart-rending; needs to be taken into our hearts and our brains, to hopefully stimulate EACH of US, not just politicians and economists, to open our arms and open our pockets to improve the health and housing of those we don't see and think about. Democrat or Republican or Libertarian or Independent, we have been blessed with many good things. We need to share our blessings with others, in our neighborhood, in our state and country and with those in other nations. A mission trip to Haiti or Peru or an African country would open many eyes and hearts to things that need to be done to improve the lives of others. It starts with each of US.

[Kevin Connell · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s a collection of speeches so not a book you necessarily need to read cover to cover, but these speeches and talks address a lot. It really saddened me to read Dr. Farmer’s views of the future and know that so many things have just gotten worse, but his words are still so relevant to today. We in healthcare still need to care for the poor and destitute and any advances we make with vaccines or drug treatments means nothing unless it’s able to help those most likely to be impacted by the disease. Dr. Farmer is one of my biggest inspirations and reading his words reminds me again of why I got into the medical field.

[Shelly Wilson]

I am having a hard time rating this one. It’s basically a collection of Paul Farmer’s speeches, most of which are commencement addresses. Individually, they are definitely worth listening to/reading, but it’s not exactly something you can dive into from cover to cover.

I love Paul Farmer. The world is worse without him. His books are incredible reads. I would recommend reading Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains if you want to learn about him. I would suggest reading any of his books if you want to learn from him (Haiti After the Earthquake taught me so much), and maybe skip this one and queue up one of his speeches on YouTube when the mood strikes instead. He is missed.

[Bibek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read. Paul Farmer shares his vision for the field of medicine in a much more idealistic and democratic light than it exists in today. His ideas, such as challenging cop-out excuses like it not being “cost-effective” to provide adequate care to those who need it most, touch on the ways that the field of medicine has accomplished so much in terms of quality of care for the few but so little in terms of expanding access to said care.

Bumping it down a star just because the format (a collection of commencement speeches) felt pretty repetitive after a while.

[JournalsTLY]

Collection of speeches - mostly given at commencement ceremonies .

Snippets of healthcare work among the very needy especially in Haiti.

About climate change , " .. a movement for sustainable development that does not have the social and economic rights of the poor at its center ... (is) a movement of the privileged"

"we may be leaders of this movement but must be also be humble participants..."

[Luke Reifenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an anthology of Paul Farmer's speeches given at university commencements, award ceremonies, or other celebrations. The speeches are witty and fun, but still confront the eponymous question lying in the title of the book in a serious way. The answer (at least for the doctors and health professionals Farmer is addressing) is by trying to cure the two greatest diseases on earth: poverty and unequal access to medical care.

[Addy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing look into issues of health equity and its connection to social justice and other movements within our world. Speeches that intertwined with Farmer’s charm and humor make an enjoyable reading experience with lots to learn about the way we treat medicine, poverty, and the world around us-and how we can repair it.