Closing the Cancer Divide: An Equity Imperative

PIH’s goal of “accompaniment” to its patients as a means to ensure that medicine is taken and hardships are eased for those in need. The third section focuses on unnatural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and the earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010. More somber in tone, these speeches quickly got to Dr. Farmer’s point that we, as doctors, scientists, and policymakers, should be making “weapons of mass salvation” instead of weapons of mass destruction. Finally, Dr. Farmer’s book closes with a few short discourses concentrating on “Service, Solidarity, and Social Justice.” These speeches, which could be considered the weakest in the book, are still encouraging. Perhaps their “weakness” is only because Dr. Farmer attempts to broach very complicated and difficult topics not usually addressed in medicine in only a few pages. The publication of this book is timely. It would make a perfect gift for a medical or biology graduate, but it would be inspiring to anyone who reads it. His speeches make one feel empowered ― to make a difference, to contribute to health policy, to accompany another who is struggling. In the speeches collected in To Repair the World, Dr. Farmer teaches us crucial lessons that we must all learn from, as scientists, as doctors, and as human beings. The only thing that would make Dr. Farmer’s message more inspiring would be to hear him speak in person, instead of simply reading his words.