{"id":6443,"date":"2017-12-15T19:20:19","date_gmt":"2017-12-15T19:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/?p=6443"},"modified":"2026-02-16T14:08:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:08:25","slug":"dr-paul-farmer-relays-health-care-challenges-in-impoverished-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/2017\/12\/15\/dr-paul-farmer-relays-health-care-challenges-in-impoverished-nations\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Paul Farmer relays health care challenges in impoverished nations"},"content":{"rendered":"

URI College of Nursing sponsors talk at R.I. NEC; students to visit clinic in Liberia<\/h4>\n

At the height of the ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014, a young girl no older than two arrived at an Ebola Treatment Unit in Liberia organized by Partners in Health<\/a>. The child\u2019s entire family had succumbed to the disease, leaving her frightened, alone and facing an uncertain future with no family to care for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cA clinician \u2013 probably a nurse \u2013 removed her earrings and had the awareness to put them in Clorox rather than just throw them away,\u201d said Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of the global health initiative. \u201cThose earrings were the only thing the baby had to remind her she even had parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story is both heartbreaking and uplifting. It serves as a reminder of the critical role health workers perform, not only in providing treatment, but also in providing care.<\/p>\n

Similar scenarios play out every day in impoverished regions starved of even the most basic health systems. Overcoming such disparities in some of the world\u2019s poorest, most remote locations \u2014 especially those wracked by virulent outbreaks \u2014 is Farmer\u2019s mission, which he relayed during his presentation, \u201cThe Caregiver\u2019s Disease: Ebola and the Challenge to Nursing in West Africa,\u201d at the R.I. Nursing Education Center in Providence on Dec. 12. His talk was sponsored by the University of Rhode Island College of Nursing, which offers instruction to juniors, seniors and graduate students at the center, part of the new South Street Landing development.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Dr. Paul Farmer addresses the challenges of providing health care in poverty-stricken regions during a presentation at the R.I. NEC Dec. 12.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThese places are clinical deserts compared to Haiti,\u201d said Farmer, the renowned physician and medical anthropologist credited with revolutionizing health care in the Caribbean nation. \u201cDuring the ebola crisis, 99 percent of the deaths were in three countries (Libera, Sierra Leone and Guinea). Why? Well, they just didn\u2019t have health systems. I can\u2019t imagine any work that is more satisfying than going to a place and giving medical services to those who don\u2019t have them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five URI nursing students will do exactly that in the Spring 2018 semester when they travel to Liberia to help treat patients at a Partners in Health clinic. Elaine Parker-Williams, a doctoral student in nursing at URI who is from Liberia, will lead the nurse practitioner students who will work with patients at J.J. Dossen Memorial Hospital in Maryland County, Liberia, especially those suffering from diabetes and hypertension, among the leading causes of death in West Africa.<\/p>\n

View Dr. Farmer’s entire presentation here<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe students will be able to assess patients, diagnose and recommend treatment,\u201d Parker-Williams said. \u201cThis is a global initiative for the University, so we can see what is happening in health care in developing nations. We\u2019re exposing the students to these areas of need, which will hopefully gear them toward careers in global health.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Dr. Paul Farmer meets with URI College of Nursing faculty members and students before his Dec. 12 presentation at the R.I. NEC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The URI students \u2014 Bethany MacLeod, Kristen Remeika, Caryn Amedee, Phoebe Hall and Christina Lewis \u2014 got the chance to learn about global health from the master, when Farmer met privately with them and URI faculty and administrators for more than an hour before his presentation. He relayed the challenges of providing care in such remote, foreign locations, and described what is needed from health care workers overseas.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not going to become culturally competent. I\u2019m not culturally competent in Haiti and I\u2019ve been going there for 35 years,\u201d Farmer told the students. \u201cWhat you really need to know is how to nurse. We need nurses who can nurse and doctors who can doctor. That\u2019s what we didn\u2019t have during the ebola crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

What they did have were plenty of misconceptions regarding the genesis and uncontrolled virulence of the devastating disease, from some locals who blamed spiritual origins to many outside the region who assumed the victims\u2019 own actions or eating habits worsened the outbreak.<\/p>\n

\"Group
Pictured left to right are Denise Coppa, Paul Farmer, Elaine Parker-Williams, Andrew Saal, Caryn Amedee, Darlingston Williams, Kristen Rameika, Christina Lewis and Bethany MacLeod.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe drive toward exoticism is a big problem with infectious disease,\u201d Farmer said. \u201cThese people didn\u2019t die from eating bush meat or from anything they did, but because of a lack of medical care. The first thing we do in one of these outbreaks is stop caring for the sick (instead, simply isolating them in an attempt to slow the spread). That is particularly painful for clinicians, especially nurses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those health care workers continue their mission despite the extreme dangers they face, especially in poor regions lacking proper sanitation and protections for those working with patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaregivers were the most at risk,\u201d Farmer said, noting hundreds of nurses and doctors contracted the disease while treating patients. \u201cIt\u2019s especially tragic for health care workers who knew what they were getting into and still tried to help save families.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Paul Farmer and URI College of Nursing Research Assistant Suzy Winchester walk toward his presentation at the R.I. Nec Dec. 12.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dr.
Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

URI College of Nursing sponsors talk at R.I. NEC; students to visit clinic in Liberia At the height of the ebola crisis in West Africa in 2014, a young girl no older than two arrived at an Ebola Treatment Unit in Liberia organized by Partners in Health. The child\u2019s entire family had succumbed to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1710,"featured_media":6491,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,18],"class_list":["post-6443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-uri-academic-health-collaborative","tag-uri-college-of-nursing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1710"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21115,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6443\/revisions\/21115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/nursing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}