As a medical student, Dr. Farmer decided to build a clinic in Haiti. It grew into a vast network serving some of the world’s poorest communities.
Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist who sought to bring high-quality health care to some of the world’s poorest people, died on Monday in Rwanda. He was 62. Partners in Health, the global public health organization that Dr. Farmer co-founded, announced his death in a statement that did not specify the cause. Dr. Farmer previously lived in Rwanda and spent decades focused on improving its health care system. Dr. Farmer gained public renown thanks largely to “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World,” a 2003 book by Tracy Kidder. It told Dr. Farmer’s life story and celebrated his devotion to helping the neediest. After he graduated from college in 1982, Dr. Farmer lived for years among Haiti’s poorest farmers, sleeping for only one or two hours a night as he set up a new medical infrastructure.
