With love and tears: My first and last memories of Dr. Paul Farmer
Dr. Sriram Shamasunder just spent a week in Rwanda at the university co-founded by Paul Farmer — and witnessed the passion and compassion of this global health champion days before his untimely death.
The last time I saw Paul Farmer was less than a week ago.
I had traveled to Rwanda to teach the inaugural medical school class at the University of Global Health Equity in Butaro, a rural village. It is a place Paul Farmer helped dream and blossom into reality, a gorgeous, pristine medical campus arising in a very rural area among the beautiful hills of Rwanda.
I did not expect to see Paul Farmer there. I had last seen him at his 60th birthday right before the pandemic. That was a star-studded affair in New Orleans. He seemed comfortable among the rich and famous.
But there he was in rural Rwanda, teaching, seeing patients and spending time with Rwandan colleagues. He
