In the late 1990s, Paul Farmer was usually the last doctor to leave the intensive care unit at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Atul Gawande, then a surgical resident, would find him there and the two would talk late into the night, discussing how to fix a health care system that, for the poor and marginalized, was utterly broken. It was Farmer’s favorite topic, and one that inspired Gawande as well.
Farmer provided a “moral center,” Gawande said. “He gave us the moral framework.”
Source: Harvard Gazette
