Study Questions for Mountains Beyond Mountains Discussion

 

There will be a small group discussion about Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder during the hour following Convocation on Thursday August 23rd.  Please prepare answers to at least 3 of the following questions as you may be called upon to discuss them in class that day.  This will be the first official meeting of your Freshman Seminar (FRO 1000) class for the fall semester.  Attendance is expected and required.

 

Questions about critical inquiry:

  • The title of the book comes from the Haitian proverb, “Beyond mountains there are mountains.”  What does the saying mean in the context of the culture it comes from, and what does it mean in relation to Paul Farmer’s work?*
  • How does Tracy Kidder’s personal relationship with his subject, Paul Farmer, affect his writing style and telling of Farmer’s story? 
  • Are there what ways in which Tracy Kidder and Paul Farmer think similarly?  Are there times when Kidder disapproves of Farmer’s actions?  If so, what subtle literary clues does Kidder give to the reader when he disapproves?
  • As a freshman entering Baruch College, you may already be registered for a course in anthropology for the fall semester. Baruch’s common core requires a course such as anthropology, so you may be taking one in a future semester.  Paul Farmer believes that his training as a doctor and an anthropologist were both indispensable to his ability to accomplish what he has done.  Might the same become true for your life?  Why or why not?

 

Questions about morality and personal decision-making:

 

  • By most people’s standards, Paul Farmer is tremendously successful.  He is a Harvard professor, “big shot Boston doctor” (p.10, McArthur “genius” grant recipient), prolific author, and the founder of a major health organization.  And yet it seems that none of these accomplishments are what he would take to be the true measure of his success.  Instead, the measure of his success seems to be a rather humble one: to be able to help one poor patient at a time.  Based on your feelings about Farmer, would you re-evaluate your definition of success?  What types of things does the average American family need to live comfortably?
  • Paul Farmer believes that “paying attention to individual patients is a moral imperative.” (p.146). By a “moral imperative,” he means that such attention must be paid simply because helping patients is the morally right thing to do, whether it has public health advantages or not. Now, it may of course turn out that close attention to individual patients does have public health advantages (e.g., it might stop the spread of a devastating disease such as multidrug-resistant TB). But Farmer thinks that, morally speaking, such benefits are irrelevant. A doctor ought to try to cure, even if it’s at great expense and even if nobody benefits (not even the patient, who might, after all, not make it!). Is Farmer right? Or do you disagree with him and think that the moral thing to do is the thing that is likely to succeed and that has some larger benefit?
  • Does Farmer’s commitment to world health, peace, and justice justify his absence from his family?  Why?  In the same situation, what would your priorities be?
  • Do you see evidence in the book to indicate that Farmer was enjoying his life? If so, what? What does it mean to live “the good life?”
  • Did Paul Farmer’s story cause you to rethink your priorities and life goals?  Are there areas in your own life or in the life of your community that present opportunities to become actively involved in helping others?  Has Paul Farmer’s story inspired you to seek such opportunities?

 

Questions about public policy decision making:

  • How would you handle the situation of the young boy in Haiti who needed an expensive medical flight to the U.S.?  (chapter 25). Is the chance of saving one person worth sacrificing the possibility of saving many others?  Should personal financial resources determine whether or not a person deserves treatment for an ailment?
  • Describe how Paul Farmer views the relationship between science and religion. How effective is he in negotiating the possibilities for coalition with Voodoo priests, liberation theologians, etc.?
  • Name some policy decisions described in the book that had unintended and unforeseen consequences.  What could have been done to avoid negative unforeseen consequences?
  • To what extent do you think wealthy First World nations such as the United States are responsible for the troubles of small, poor countries such as Haiti?  What is the extent of our obligation toward the world’s poor? What types of proposals for more equitable distribution of wealth in the world are there?

 

Questions about leadership and best business practices:

  • How does Farmer’s upbringing predict his success as a doctor, humanitarian, and political/social activist? How do you think your own background has influenced your decisions so far and will continue to influence your life decisions?
  • What aspects of Farmer’s management style do you think were effective and why?  What aspects were ineffective and why? What was it about Paul Farmer that made people follow him, listen to him, and in cases, revere him?  Was Farmer a charismatic leader, and if so, what about him made him so charismatic?  Do you think that these qualities are shared by successful business leaders? 
  • Do you think that Paul Farmer’s “Robin Hood” or “guerilla” tactics (e.g., working under the radar of the official TB program in Peru; “borrowing” expensive drugs from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston) are the best way to affect the kind of improvements in the care for the poor that Farmer was seeking?  Can you think of other avenues to affect medical improvements?
  • What practices and strategies allow Partners in Health (PIH) to grow from a small fringe organization into a large and influential one? Would any of the organizational strategies that worked for PIH work elsewhere?
  • What business challenges and opportunities does the globalization of infectious diseases pose for future business leaders?

 

 

 

*Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains: A Reader’s Guide, New York; Random House, Inc., 2004, p.321.