Dr. Paul Farmer visits Canisius College

Dr. Paul Farmer was amazing last night. I think I might have been a little lost in the hype at first but he’s an incredible person. For everyone who doesn’t know, Dr. Farmer is one of the founders of Partners In Health, a large non-profit that works to bring medical care to the poorest places in the world. Dr. Farmer started PIH while he was a medical student at Harvard Medical school. He's also one of my personal role models and an inspiration as an aspiring health care professional. According to Kidder’s biography, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Farmer would skip classes during the week his first couple of years to work clinics in Haiti, and return to Boston for exams and clinical rotations. His passion for people and health were evident. 

Dr. Farmer premised his talk with a overview of the health care system in general. There were three parts in his eyes: Discovery, Development and Delivery. Discoveries made in labs, such as vaccines, medical equipment etc, need to be developed into products that can be utilized in the delivery of care. As a physician, Dr. Farmer sees the system in realm of delivery. He spoke about the enormous amounts of people in the world without access to care and sought to change that, and to a great extent, he has.  He mentioned the negative mentalities that people in high places had for years in terms of providing care to the poorest nations. Statistics about how it could never pay off, and was completely unfeasible. My favorite part was definitely his citing of  a couple quotes from a couple government agencies, which basically was them giving excuses why these poor nations are not worth even trying on. Dr. Farmer responded to these quotes with fervor, tearing them down and totally disproving them with his entire career. 

Issues of cost in health care came up as well. The vast disparities between cost of drugs and medical supplies in the U.S. is obscene. He mentioned that health care is a strange field in that aspect. If any other good or service ranged in cost to the extent that health care does, heads would be turning, but given the complexities involved in health care, somehow they get away with it. Nonetheless, even in the face of cost, Dr. Farmer was able to raise money and secure medications for his patients abroad in order to treat AIDS/HIV, Tuberculosis and even cancer in the poorest nations in the world. 

The motif that we can learn from these nations was recurring. The idea of “community based healthcare” and how in some parts of Rwanda, higher percentages of people are gaining access to health care than in parts of the United States. 

All in all, Dr. Farmer was inspiring. Despite what people say about him not being a great family man, he’s an incredible person. He found something worth fighting for and changed the world. Given the unbelievable turnout I know many others agree. After his talk he took 8 questions, but stuck around to speak with the long line of guests that waited to meet him. 

All Dr. Farmer spoke about medicine is even truer in dentistry today in the U.S. Costs of oral care are often too expensive for people, and insurance has not done much in the way of solving this problem. This article on DrBicuspid.com talks about America's Dental Care Crisis, and the people of Wisconsin, Minnesota and other states who are in pain, suffering from a lack of dental care. Dentistry as a whole requires a change if care is to be extended to the underserved populations in this country. Overhead for dental care in general is miles above that of a primary care physician's office. Progress is being made in the way of Community Dental Care Coordinators, to aid in the access to care issue. Today dentists, possibly even moreso than physicians should be concerned with our delivery of care, and how we can extend care to those in greatest need.