Musings and Meditations

One of my former professors in college once revealed to me that all fields and all disciplines trace roots to the field of philosophy—a field concerning the understanding of knowledge, existence, and reality. A physician-in-training, I am now committed to a life’s work of understanding how the field of medicine examines how people experience reality on a daily basis. While reading Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains , a work focusing on the life and work of Harvard physician and global health advocate Paul Farmer, I was impressed by Farmer’s unwavering dedication to his patients [see previous blog post, Paul Farmer: Lessons from the Mountains (Part1) ]. As I continue reading Mountains, I am further fascinated by his philosophies and theories concerning the role of medicine in promoting, what Farmer refers to as, "Liberation Theology.” Kidder describes liberation theology as theology with an “emphasis on the horrors of poverty and on redressing them in the here and now, ...

Paul Farmer. A name I had heard while overseas in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It was the summer of 2013, and I was busy wrapping up an eight-week public health research study among college students in the country. My research colleague, stunned that I had never heard of such an iconic figure, informed me that Dr. Farmer had done substantial work in global health delivery in Haiti and other countries around the world, as well as pioneered an organization called Partners in Health. Upon returning to the States, slightly embarrassed by my apparent ignorance of such a legend, I did a quick Google search on Farmer, finding the same summary of information disclosed by my colleague. After sifting through a few more websites, I came across the book Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, a biography written about Farmer and his life's work. I decided to purchase the book. I did not pick up the book right away. For months, it waited. Waited patiently as "unread" on my Kindle. T...

An aspiring physician and recent graduate of Howard University--a historically Black university in Washington, DC and one of the most widely-known and respected HBCUs in the nation--I am often regarded as a future leader in and for the African-American community. But what does leadership look like for African-American women--or women in a general sense? In our current global society, women hold only 4.8% of CEO positions at Fortune 500 and 1000 companies. A recent survey of the United States surgical workforce reported that women comprise only 19% of surgeons in the country. Even at an institution such as Howard University where approximately two-thirds of the student body is female, a woman has NEVER been granted the title of full presidency at the University. Furthermore, as a recently accepted student to the New Pathway Medical Degree program at Harvard Medical School, I realized that having "Harvard" attached to and affiliated with my name automatically deemed me a ...