Mountains Beyond Mountains Selected for Duke Summer Reading Assignment

DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University's Class of 2008 will begin its college career by reading "Mountains Beyond Mountains," the story of Duke alumnus and infectious disease specialist Paul Farmer who helped start an international agency that brings modern medical care to the poor.

The non-fiction narrative by Tracy Kidder, a Pulitzer Prize winner, will be sent to all incoming first-year undergraduates in mid-July as part of a new student welcome packet. The students are expected to read the book before August orientation sessions, when they will participate in small-group discussions.

Ryan Lombardi, assistant dean of students and chairman of the summer reading selection committee, said that "Mountains Beyond Mountains" was the committee's unanimous choice because it will inspire students to find and follow their passion.

"The book is captivating because it tells the story of someone who has to be persistent, creative and tireless to accomplish a goal," he said. "And although that goal seems unattainable, he has no doubt he can solve the problem."

This is the third year that the university has had a summer reading assignment, which is intended to provide a taste of Duke's intellectual climate and to foster a shared learning experience and a sense of community among incoming students. Last year, students read "Savage Inequalities" by Jonathan Kozol; the previous year, the choice was Ethan Canin's short story, "The Palace Thief."

A committee of 10 faculty members, undergraduate students and student affairs administrators began meeting in January to consider 40 nominations. They were aiming for a provocative book, and eventually chose five finalists: "Reading Lolita in Tehran," "The Two Cultures," "Einstein's Dreams," "Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic" and "Mountains Beyond Mountains."

"Mountains" emerged as the choice because committee members felt that Farmer's Duke connection would make it especially powerful.

"You're presenting to the students who are just beginning their Duke careers one of their own who's done things they have only dreamed about," said Chris Kennedy, senior associate director of athletics and an adjunct assistant professor of English.

"I think it will open their eyes to all of the possibilities."

It has already done that for Anu Kotha, a first-year student who served on the selection committee.

"It's definitely changed my ideas about where I want to go," said Kotha, who is pre-med. "I don't think I'd be satisfied anymore just going to a wealthy hospital in the U.S."

Lombardi said that he and other campus administrators are already working to invite Kidder and Farmer to campus to be part of the discussion.

Farmer, a medical anthropologist, physician and 1982 Duke graduate, is a professor of medical anthropology in the Department of Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Social Medicine and Health Inequalities at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Farmer is a founding director of Partners In Health, a Boston-based agency that provides care, research and advocacy for those who are sick and poor. He is also the medical director of a small hospital in rural Haiti, and is known for pioneering new treatments for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect the poor, such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

According to a biography on the Partners In Health Web site, Farmer played a leading role in the World Health Organization developing a working group on multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. His work in evaluating effective TB treatment programs has taken him to such places as Peru, Russia, Latvia and Azerbaijan.

He has written extensively on health and human rights and is the author or co-author of more than 100 publications, including "Pathologies of Power," (University of California Press, 2003). His numerous awards include the Duke University Humanitarian Award, the American Medical Association's International Physician Award, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's "genius award" and the Heinz Award for the Human Condition.

In the middle of a violent uprising against the Haitian government earlier this year, Farmer wrote that the international community must act "immediately to provide a security force to halt the rising violence and restore stability for the democratically elected government."

"History teaches us that when military and paramilitary groups in Haiti increase their power, the poor's access to health care decreases," according to a letter Farmer wrote that was posted on the Partners In Health Web site.

"From 1991 to 1994, the last years of military rule, many sick people were afraid to leave their homes for desperately needed care, often dying from treatable diseases as a result. Partners In Health now provides treatment for those same diseases by making daily contact with patients in the countryside -- an increasingly dangerous endeavor."