Speakers Bureau to host Dr. Paul Farmer

Anthropologist, physician, humanitarian, and author Paul Farmer will discuss “The Future of Global Health” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, in the Arthur Zankel Music Center on the Skidmore College campus.

Skidmore’s student-run Speaker’s Bureau is sponsoring Farmer’s lecture, which will include the awarding of an honorary degree to the noted author. General admission tickets are $8 each and may be purchased online here or by contacting the Zankel box office at 518-580-5321.

A medical anthropologist and human rights advocate, Farmer has become widely known through his acclaimed books, film and TV coverage of his work, and national awards and honors.  He has worked extensively in Haiti—his books include AIDS and Accusation and Haiti After the Earthquake—but his nonprofit Partners in Health provides medical care in areas from North and South America to Central Europe and Africa. Farmer’s most recent book is Reimagining Global Health. 

Farmer and PIH have pioneered community-based treatment strategies that model high-quality health-care delivery even in the most resource-poor settings. Farmer has won awards from the American Anthropological Association and American Medical Association, a MacArthur “genius award,” and, with his PIH colleagues, the Hilton Humanitarian Prize.  He is the Kolokotrones University Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the global-health equity division at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He is also a special advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General on community-based medicine and lessons from Haiti.