Mountains.

A friend gave me the book Mountains Beyond Mountains for Christmas and it captivated me.  It tells of an infectious disease doctor, Paul Farmer, who spends the majority of his time in Haiti fighting against all odds to provide basic health care to thousands of underserved people.  He also spends his time traveling the globe helping others to achieve the same goal that he set out with – curing infectious disease and bringing modern medicine to the ends of the earth.  Farmer’s whole story is amazing – from graduating with both an MD and PhD from Harvard while concurrently serving in Haiti to forming Partners in Health before he turned thirty.  But the two things that amaze me the most about Farmer are his humility and his deep love for all people.  For a man whose list of accomplishments is longer than I can imagine, he only sees what he has left to do, the people he has left to treat, and the problems he has left to solve – there are mountains beyond mountains.  His whole life is about others.  When Farmer looks at his patients, he sees an individual and their illness not their ability to pay or their social class.  His heart breaks so deeply for those who have nothing and need everything that he sacrifices so much of himself.  He is everything a physician should be but, above all else, he is compassionate and empathetic.

He is the kind of physician I want to be.

“The only real nation is humanity.” –Paul Farmer

Consider me inspired – just what I needed.