Skip to main content

Main menu

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 Articles
  • Authors
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
  • CMA Members
    • Overview for members
    • Earn CPD Credits
    • Print copies of CMAJ
  • Subscribers
    • General information
    • View prices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2022
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN

User menu

Search

  • Advanced search
CMAJ
  • CMAJ JOURNALS
    • CMAJ Open
    • CJS
    • JAMC
    • JPN
CMAJ

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Content
    • Current issue
    • Past issues
    • Early releases
    • Collections
    • Sections
    • Blog
    • Infographics & illustrations
    • Podcasts
    • COVID-19 Articles
  • Authors
    • Overview for authors
    • Submission guidelines
    • Submit a manuscript
    • Forms
    • Editorial process
    • Editorial policies
    • Peer review process
    • Publication fees
    • Reprint requests
    • Open access
  • CMA Members
    • Overview for members
    • Earn CPD Credits
    • Print copies of CMAJ
  • Subscribers
    • General information
    • View prices
  • Alerts
    • Email alerts
    • RSS
  • JAMC
    • À propos
    • Numéro en cours
    • Archives
    • Sections
    • Abonnement
    • Alertes
    • Trousse média 2022
  • Visit CMAJ on Facebook
  • Follow CMAJ on Twitter
  • Follow CMAJ on Pinterest
  • Follow CMAJ on Youtube
  • Follow CMAJ on Instagram
The Left Atrium

The impetus to cure

Mark Frutkin
CMAJ November 18, 2008 179 (11) 1177; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.081705
Mark Frutkin
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Tables
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF
Loading
  • © 2008 Canadian Medical Association

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World Tracy Kidder; Random House; 2003; 317 pp $37.95 ISBN 0-375-50616-0

Pultizer Prize winner, Tracy Kidder, the highly regarded American author of The Soul of the New Machine, House and many other celebrated nonfiction books, recently turned his finely honed powers of observation to world-renowned physician Dr. Paul Farmer. Mountains Beyond Mountains is a magnificent and inspiring profile and arguably Kiddder's most important work. This is the kind of book that can, literally, change people's lives.

Figure
  • Download figure
  • Open in new tab
  • Download powerpoint

Photo by: Random House

As with Kidder's previous books, the author immersed himself completely in the life of Farmer, a graduate of Harvard Medical School who also holds a doctorate in anthropology. Kidder shadowed Farmer constantly for almost 4 years and learned that the doctor had one great obsession — utter dedication to curing his patients, wherever they were.

And his patients were indeed all over the map: from Boston to Haiti to Peru, Cuba and Russia. Farmer's main obsession in the years Kidder was following in his frenzied footsteps (1999–2003) was Haiti, especially a denuded rural region in the mountains where the peasants had lost their land to a hydroelectric project, one of the poorest areas of the Western Hemisphere with little medical service available.

Farmer established a clinic in the town of Cange under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances, both medical and political. Some of his work included raising funds in the United States (his name is well-known at the Bill & Melinda Gates and Soros Foundations, as well as the World Health Organization), but most of his effort involved a day-to-day medical practice on the ground.

Farmer said he “never cared much about the religious dogma he'd been taught as a child,” but that he did have faith in “penicillin, rifampin, isoniazid, and the good absorption of the fluoroquinolones, in bench science, clinical trials, scientific progress, that HIV is the cause of every case of AIDS, that the rich oppress the poor, that wealth is flowing in the wrong direction, that this will cause more epidemics and kill millions.”

Eventually, much of Farmer's medical work began to focus on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and he travelled to Russia numerous times where tuberculosis was rampant in the prison population. There are memorable scenes of Farmer drinking vodka in dingy surroundings with prison officials anxious to fete the famous doctor. In official circles, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis was considered too expensive to treat in poor countries. Farmer refused to accept that and found ways to begin to defeat drug-resistant strains in poorer nations.

Without a doubt, Farmer was a highly unusual, charismatic character with seemingly boundless, superhuman energy. When Kidder followed him on treks through the mountains of Haiti to provide medical assistance to distant villages, or sat next to him on flights back to the United States while he worked ceaselessly answering emails offering advice to medical colleagues around the globe, the reader experiences how Farmer would push himself almost beyond endurance.

Kidder tells Farmer's story with verve and skill, weaving together the doctor's experiences in dusty villages and high-tech Boston hospitals with his unusual, middle-class upbringing in the American south (he was raised on a bus and a boat), and including enough medical science to intrigue both layman and specialist. Occasionally, the story bogs down in attempting to track the complex machinations of international medical agencies, but this is a minor flaw. The author also offers views on Farmer from colleagues, friends, supporters and former lovers, providing the reader with a rich, multifaceted picture of a truly absorbing individual.

Tracy Kidder, with this penetrating, thorough, intelligent biography, has placed his stethoscope on one dedicated doctor to learn what truly makes Paul Farmer tick.

Footnotes

  • Mark Frutkin's latest novel, Fabrizio's Return, won the 2006 Trillium Award for best book in Ontario. His latest nonfiction book is Erratic North: A Vietnam Draft Resister's Life in the Canadian Bush (2008).

PreviousNext
Back to top

In this issue

Canadian Medical Association Journal: 179 (11)
CMAJ
Vol. 179, Issue 11
18 Nov 2008
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author

Article tools

Respond to this article
Print
Download PDF
Article Alerts
To sign up for email alerts or to access your current email alerts, enter your email address below:
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on CMAJ.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
The impetus to cure
(Your Name) has sent you a message from CMAJ
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the CMAJ web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
The impetus to cure
Mark Frutkin
CMAJ Nov 2008, 179 (11) 1177; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.081705

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
‍ Request Permissions
Share
The impetus to cure
Mark Frutkin
CMAJ Nov 2008, 179 (11) 1177; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.081705
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Footnotes
  • Figures & Tables
  • Responses
  • Metrics
  • PDF

Related Articles

  • No related articles found.
  • Google Scholar

Cited By...

  • No citing articles found.
  • Google Scholar

More in this TOC Section

  • On becoming
  • Chronicles of a cardiologist in Canada's North
  • Rethinking randomized controlled trials
Show more The Left Atrium

Similar Articles

Collections

  • Topics
    • Canadian government

 

View Latest Classified Ads

Content

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Collections
  • Sections
  • Blog
  • Podcasts
  • Alerts
  • RSS
  • Early releases

Information for

  • Advertisers
  • Authors
  • Reviewers
  • CMA Members
  • Media
  • Reprint requests
  • Subscribers

About

  • General Information
  • Journal staff
  • Editorial Board
  • Advisory Panels
  • Governance Council
  • Journal Oversight
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Copyright and Permissions
  • Accessibiity
  • CMA Civility Standards
CMAJ Group

Copyright 2022, CMA Impact Inc. or its licensors. All rights reserved. ISSN 1488-2329 (e) 0820-3946 (p)

All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Canadian Medical Association or its subsidiaries.

To receive any of these resources in an accessible format, please contact us at CMAJ Group, 500-1410 Blair Towers Place, Ottawa ON, K1J 9B9; p: 1-888-855-2555; e: cmajgroup@cmaj.ca

Powered by HighWire