Medical students, public health students and anthropology students had an opportunity to meet and discuss global health advocacy with world-renowned physician, anthropologist and Partners in Health co-founder Paul Farmer, M.D., during an afternoon session that was part of his visit to the University of Vermont on November 3, 2016.

Joining the roundtable discussion in UVM's Davis Center were faculty members Jan Carney, M.D., M.P.H., associate dean for public health, and Jonah Steinberg, Ph.D., associate professor of anthropology.

Later that evening, more than 1000 people attended Farmer's 2016 George D. Aiken Lecture, held in UVM's Ira Allen Chapel and broadcast live to hundreds more viewers at overflow sites in the Billings and Given buildings on campus. Farmer shared slides and stories of patient experiences in Haiti, West Africa, and other resource-poor locations where Partners in Health works to provide relief. His talk, peppered with mention of the key "4 S's" of international health - staff, space, stuff and systems - focused on future and historical approaches to helping bring better health to these regions and emphasized the need for continued philanthropy to support such initiatives.

Farmer, who directly addressed medical students several times throughout his Aiken Lecture presentation, generously conducted an informal Q&A with students at the post-event reception in the UVM Fleming Museum's Marble Court. Medical students' questions ran the gamut from how to balance school work with global health trips to running an NGO, and included lots of opportunities for snapping photos for social media posting.

The Kolokotrones University professor and chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Farmer is also chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Boston-based Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He helped found Partners in Health nearly 30 years ago in an effort to provide free medical care in central Haiti. Today, the organization teams up with local groups to treat people with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other conditions in Haiti and countries around the world. Farmer has written extensively on health, human rights, and the consequences of social inequality. He has spent his career working to improve healthcare around the globe, because he believes “health is a right, not a commodity.” He says the biggest barrier to health care equity is a failure of imagination.

Learn more about the UVM Aiken Lecture Series.