'Building Back Better'

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Paul Farmer, the United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti, delivered the keynote address at the 2010 GlobeMed Global Health Summit March 5, at Northwestern University.

Speaking to a capacity crowd at Cahn Auditorium, Farmer offered his observations on the current conditions in Haiti and the crucial work that needs to be done to effectively rebuild and strengthen the country.

Hundreds of students from universities across the country attended the daylong summit sponsored by GlobeMed, a national network of students committed to educating, training and inspiring the next generation of leaders in global health.

An anthropologist, physician and Harvard University professor of global health and social medicine, Farmer was appointed U.N. Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti by former President Bill Clinton.

In 1983, Farmer co-founded Partners In Health, an organization that expanded from a one-building clinic in Haiti to an internationally acclaimed nonprofit organization fighting poverty and improving health care in 12 countries. In recent weeks, the organization has taken a leading role in providing medical care to Haiti’s earthquake victims.

A MacArthur Foundation “genius” award winner, Farmer is the subject of “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World,” a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder.

The need for kidney transplantation doesn't match our capacity.

Lorenzo Gallon of Feinberg is among those to say doctors should consider trying to reuse more organs to ease a shortage