Mountains Beyond Mountains: One doctor's quest to heal the world

by Tracy Kidder

At one point, speaking about medicine, he said, “I don’t know why everybody isn’t excited by it.” He smiled at me, and his face turned bright, not red so much as glowing, a luminescent smile. It affected me quite strongly, like a welcome gladly given, one you didn’t have to earn.

“I don’t care how often people say, ‘You’re a saint.’ It’s not that I mind it. It’s that it’s inaccurate.”

“People call me a saint and I think, I have to work harder. Because a saint would be a great thing to be.”

“I feel ambivalent about selling my services in a world where some can’t buy them. You can feel ambivalent about that, because you should feel ambivalent. Comma.”

“You can’t sympathize with the staff too much, or you risk not sympathizing with the patients.”

Farmer liked to tell his Harvard students that to be a good clinician you must never let a patient know that you have problems too, or that you’re in a hurry.