Mountains Beyond Mountains

Mountains Beyond Mountains

YA biography (revision of adult book for younger readers)
A Haitian proverb reads "Beyond mountains there are mountains."
Basically it means once you're solved one problem you see that others
have cropped up. I don't think there is any adage more suited to
today's world or any phrase more descriptive of this truly inspiring
biography of a doctor, Paul Farmer, devoting his life to providing
health care to the indigent, prisoners, and others whom folks in power
would rather just write off.
Farmer had an unusual upbringing. One of six children, he moved
around a lot. Sometimes his family lived in quite unorthodox quarters
including a bus, tents, and a boat. When he started college,
amenities like hot showers that his classmates took for granted
surprised him. Although he didn't feel deprived he would consider his
childhood "pretty strange."
Travel abroad during his college years led Farmer to combine the
studies of medicine and anthropology. He was inspired by the writings
of Rudolf Virchow who had connected health and social conditions.
"The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social
problems should largely be solved by them.". He realized that an epi
(short for epidemiological) map would show that financially well off
populations tended to live a lot longer and die from different causes
that the poor, slum housed, and malnourished. The drive to change
this became his life's work.
Mountains Beyond Mountains documents not only Farmer's
trailblazing work, but the thoughts and feelings behind it. You
learn, for instance, that even jetting around the world to raise money
and effect policies he never lost the heart of a clinician caring for
and about very specific patients or his desire to stay as much as
possible in the impoverished nation of Haiti. I would reccomend this
fine book to folks like myself who believe that fighting for what you
believe in agaist all odds is crucial and then even more to people who
see it as an exercise in futility.
On a personal note, I greatly admire Farmer's committmemt. I could
not begin to match it, especially since I've been the mom in my
family. I think by now you know my passion is educational reform.
Most of my life I've seen how education in America, financed by
property taxes with government loathe to make up the difference to
help poorer communities, is anything but equal. Now there's also the
way schools focussed narrowly around standardized tests and judged by
their achieving high scores are, in my mind, not only widening the
inequality, but doing a disservice to all kids. With my children just
about grown up, although I'll never match Farmer's total dedication,
I'll be doing all I can to fight for what I believe in against very
big and monied interests.
A great big shout out goes out to all who strive to bring the basic
right of health care to those capitalism would just write off.
Julia Emily Hathaway


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