What was Paul Farmer’s family like? What role did they play in his life and career as a doctor?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Farmer’s family was big and poor. They lived in humble quarters for most of his childhood, which helped Farmer develop the ability to work and sleep anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Read more about Paul Farmer’s family and early life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Paul Farmer grew up as one of 6 siblings. His father worked as a salesman, and later as a teacher, while his mother held sales jobs. They moved from Massachusetts, to Alabama, to Florida. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Farmer\u2019s family lived in humble quarters, such as a bus in a trailer park and a sailboat, for most of his childhood.<\/strong> The unconventional close quarters helped Farmer develop the ability to work and sleep anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farmer was a bright child and was enrolled in his school\u2019s gifted and talented program. He relished reading books like Lord of the Rings<\/em> and started his own herpetology club. In high school, he was popular with young women, which his mother said was because he was a good listener.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farmer accepted a full scholarship at Duke University. His first semester, he was extremely busy taking in the college experience. It was his first exposure to wealth, as many of the students there came from wealthy families, and he had access to the theater and other cultural experiences he hadn\u2019t before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, Farmer realized that he was more drawn to the values he grew up with, such as helping the underdog and the truly poor, than he was to wealth. He observed the farmworkers employed near Duke, many of whom were Haitian and lived in conditions far worse than he had grown up with. He grew fascinated with Haiti and strove to learn all he could.<\/strong> He suspected that Haiti\u2019s long history of being ruled by colonial or imperial interests had hurt its people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Farmer volunteered at Duke\u2019s Hospital and decided to apply to schools where he could earn a dual degree in medicine and anthropology. He also decided to go to Haiti before starting medical school. He reasoned that spending a year there doing anthropological and medical work would help him decide whether he liked that path.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What was Paul Farmer’s family like? What role did they play in his life and career as a doctor? Paul Farmer’s family was big and poor. They lived in humble quarters for most of his childhood, which helped Farmer develop the ability to work and sleep anywhere. Read more about Paul Farmer’s family and early life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,12],"tags":[166],"class_list":["post-21028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-relationships","tag-mountains-beyond-mountains","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom Anthropology to Medicine<\/h3>\n\n\n\n