Sriram Shamasunder: "With Love and Tears: My First and Last Memories of Dr. Paul Farmer"
Sriram Shamasunder—physician, associate professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco, and co-founder and faculty director of the HEAL Initiative—wrote a tribute to Paul Farmer. The following is an excerpt from NPR's Goats And Soda:
"When I finished my residency, like so many physicians in my generation, I attempted to follow his example. I wanted to work in Haiti, where he started his organization Partners in Health in 1987. On a brief phone call, he instead enrolled me to work over the next year in rural Burundi, a place with even fewer physicians. Like so many before me, so early in my career, he made me feel as if I were making the only career decision that made sense—choosing what he called 'pragmatic solidarity' alongside the poor."