Paul Farmer

He is married to Didi Bertrand, a Haitian-born anthropologist. The couple has three children.

He was born as one of the six children to a salesman and high school teacher in Massachusetts. His father, a “free spirit”, was in the habit of moving his large family frequently.

Paul had an unconventional upbringing and spent most of his childhood in an old school bus which his father had converted into a mobile home. He became aware of the wider world and its problems due to the family’s frequent traveling.

His parents instilled in their children a love for serious literature and an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Over the years he would acquire the skill of learning new languages with ease.

He excelled academically at the Hernando High School and was elected the president of his senior class. He earned a full scholarship to Duke University in North Carolina where he took a course in medical anthropology. While at the university he was deeply influenced by the writings of the 19th century German physician and scientist Rudolf Virchow.

While at Duke he became fascinated with the lives of the Haitian migrant workers at the nearby tobacco plantations. He was intrigued by them and their country and began learning all he could about Haiti, including the Creole language.

He went to Haiti in 1983 when the country was going through a very difficult time under the dictatorship of the Duvalier family. At that time the poor were having a horrible time accessing medical resources. The facilities for training local doctors and nurses were also very poor. Farmer found his calling there—he made it his life’s purpose to do something for Haiti’s impoverished.

With the help of a Haitian priest, Father Lafontant and a young English woman, Ophelia Dahl, who had come to Haiti as a medical volunteer, he founded a community based health project called the Zanmi Lasante. He opened Clinique Bon Saveur, a small two room clinic in Cange, Haiti, in 1985.

Owing to political tensions Haiti’s dictator fled the country in 1986. At around this time AIDS was gaining epidemic proportions in urban slums. The suffering of the people propelled Farmer to do more for them.

In 1987, Farmer collaborated with Ophelia Dahl and a former Duke classmate, Todd McCormack to found the Partners In Health (PIH) in Boston. Dahl served as the President and Executive Director while the philanthropist Tom White contributed a million dollars in the seed money. Harvard medical student Jim Yong Kim soon joined them.

Farmer launched a program in Boston to deal with rising rates of HIV and tuberculosis in Haiti. He also served as an attending specialist on the senior staff at Birmingham. He regularly went to Haiti and remained there whenever he could.

His biggest contribution to humanity is the co-founding of the health organization Partners In Health (PIH)—Zanmi Lasante is a Haitian sister organization. The organization aims to deliver the benefits of modern medical facilities to the poorest and sickest of people, especially those living in impoverished countries.