|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Paul Farmer
Founder, Partners in Health
Paul Farmer: Haiti's been my best teacher. In 2005, I went to Rwanda, and along with other people at Partners In Health. There are projects in Malawi and Lisutu, with a partner institution in Burundi. So from 2005 to now, I spent most of my time -- field time -- in Africa. But if I hadn't learned those lessons, and we hadn't learned those lessons in Haiti, then how would we know really what to do in rural Africa, because those are not culturally similar places, but they're structurally similar. So there's no cultural or linguistic tie between Haiti and Rwanda, but they're very poor, agrarian societies, much disrupted by political violence and with a history of heavy post-colonial burdens. So there are very significant structural similarities between those places. So of course, one hopes that the lessons learned in Haiti would be -- I guess the word is "transferable," and most of them are. So Haiti's been my best teacher in that sense. But I wouldn't want teachers at Duke and Harvard to think that I was saying that I didn't have the book knowledge that I needed, that I got that in Haiti. Really, I got that in the universities. But understanding its strengths and limitations of book knowledge, if I can -- or analysis in general -- you learn that in a place like Haiti. You find out how far that knowledge can take you, and where you need to generate new knowledge, and that comes from working with lots of other people, as I've said a couple of times.
View Interview with Paul Farmer
View Biography of Paul Farmer
View Profile of Paul Farmer
View Photo Gallery of Paul Farmer
|
|
|
Paul Farmer
Founder, Partners in Health
The doctors and nurses who are delivering mediocre medical care are not doing it 'cause they want to. They're doing it because they don't have the tools of the trade, the system behind them that they would need to provide good medical care. You know, in all the years that I've spent working in Haiti and Africa -- which is now 25 years, and Latin America -- versus, say Harvard, I tell you, I don't think that these young professionals in Africa are any less committed, even though I would have said that 15 or 20 years ago. They're not less committed to medicine and to people's health. They just don't have the systems and tools that they need. One of the biggest epiphanies for me in working in these different places is, if you can set it up so that young African professionals, nurses and doctors and social workers and people in Haiti, et cetera -- if they can actually do their work, they're happy to do it. People talk about the brain drain. One of the best ways to respond to brain drain is actually give these young professionals the tools that they need to serve the poor, 'cause they're surrounded by the poor. I think that's a big part of what we need to do in global health, is to make sure that we don't make the mistake, say as young Americans -- I'm not young any more, but -- of saying, "Oh, it's all about us going in and saving the day." It was never about that. It's always about building systems, and building teams, and building partnerships that will last.
View Interview with Paul Farmer
View Biography of Paul Farmer
View Profile of Paul Farmer
View Photo Gallery of Paul Farmer
|
|
|
Suzanne Farrell
Ballerina Extraordinaire
I used to love to play dress-up, where you get your mother's or your grandmother's dresses and high heels. I had two sisters, and we would love to get dressed up and pretend that we were chic, sophisticated ladies. And I think that was a great sort of preparation, in a way. Rather theatrical, and something that was a lot of fun to do, and in a way it translated into getting on stage, where you dress up and you become someone other than who you are. We used to put on little shows in the basement for the neighborhood people, and of course no one would come. Who would want to see what we had to offer? But we took them very seriously, and we gave these performances.
View Interview with Suzanne Farrell
View Biography of Suzanne Farrell
View Profile of Suzanne Farrell
View Photo Gallery of Suzanne Farrell
|
|
|
Suzanne Farrell
Ballerina Extraordinaire
I would rehearse it differently each time. Maybe it would be awful, but it would be an option, so that when I got out on stage, if the dictates of the moment required it, I had what I called my bag of tricks that I had been through, and you just store them up for the time when they will come in handy. Otherwise, you are rehearsing an opinion, if you do it the same way all the time. If you rehearse the ballet the same way all the time, if you write the same essay, if you draw the same little ponytail, if you do everything the same, you are rehearsing an opinion, and before you know it, you can't change.
View Interview with Suzanne Farrell
View Biography of Suzanne Farrell
View Profile of Suzanne Farrell
View Photo Gallery of Suzanne Farrell
|
|
|
Sally Field
Two Oscars for Best Actress
Sally Field: Well, you know, ultimately you look at these things. You look at these paths and these journeys you go on, and I think it's up to you to find the value in them, 'cause there is value in all of them, even those that you would call, "Godsh, I shouldn't have done that. I should've done that, I need to do that." I did that, and I was there for three years. And it was an invaluable education. It was not a very glamorous one. It was a successful one, in that the show was successful for three years. It would've gone on, had I not begun to drag my feet so terribly and, you know, every night wish it ill. But what it did for me -- besides learning a kind of facility with the craft of stepping in front of a camera, of learning dialogue, a facility that I didn't have yet -- is that I met Madeleine Sherwood, who was the actress who played Mother Superior. And I was so desperately unhappy. She said, "Come with me." And at the end of the first year of The Flying Nun, she took me to the Actor's Studio to meet Lee Strasberg, and that was a monumental change in my life. From then on, I would work in the daytime, in between The Flying Nun, and at night I would be at the Actor's Studio in L.A., because Lee Strasberg would be, six months out of the year in L.A. I would be doing just outrageous material that I still didn't quite understand. I was doing Sartre's Respectful Prostitute, or whatever I could do that I thought was completely outside of what The Flying Nun was. But ultimately, I worked with Lee on and off for about ten years. And ultimately I learned a craft. I learned to hear my voice of what I really wanted to do. And finally, when I was given the opportunity to do the work, I really knew how to do it.
View Interview with Sally Field
View Biography of Sally Field
View Profile of Sally Field
View Photo Gallery of Sally Field
|
| |
|
