About Mountains Beyond Mountains: Mountains Beyond Mountains tells the remarkable story of anthropologist, infectious disease specialist and physician Dr. Paul Farmer, "a man who would cure the world." Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder traces Farmer's journey from an unconventional childhood to Duke University and Harvard Medical School, where he discovered his calling to bring medical care to the poorest people in the world. In 1987, Farmer founded Partners In Health, a non-profit organization that not only brings modern medical science to those in need, but also partners with local communities to address the conditions of poverty and injustice that threaten health. From its beginnings in central Haiti, Partners In Health now operates in nine countries on four continents.
The Haitian proverb from which the book’s title comes, “Beyond Mountains, there are Mountains,” reminds us that for each challenge we meet, a new one arises. It is an apt metaphor to describe Paul Farmer’s commitment to do whatever it takes to meet the needs of every patient. This book shows that one person can indeed make a difference in the world and offers the Berry community much to contemplate as we strive to build lives of meaning and purpose.
About the First-Year Reading Program: All first-year students entering in the fall of 2008 will receive a copy of Mountains Beyond Montains at SOAR. During pre-semester orientation (Viking Venture), students met with their First-Year Seminar classmates, usually in their instructors' homes, for a pizza dinner, followed by a book discussion. This shared intellectual experience at the start of their college careers offers students an opportunity to get to know each other, their advisors and first-year mentors. Through conversation about the book and the issues it raises, students are welcomed into the Berry College community.
On October 1, 2008, Dr. David Walton will visit Berry to talk about his experiences with Partners in Health. An associate physician in the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Dr. Walton divides his time between Boston and Lascaobas, Haiti. This event is sponsored by the Conson Wilson Lectureship Committee.
