I am a doctor - it's a profession that may be considered a special mission, a devotion. It calls for involvement, respect and willingness to help all other people.
I never set out to be a journalist. I wanted to be a humanitarian doctor like Albert Schweitzer, working in Africa.
I think Operation Smile is in more than 22 countries, mostly Third World. It just happened that my schedule opened up at the time they were heading to Vietnam.
I was sure I was going to be a doctor of global health or tropical medicine in some underdeveloped country.
Fighting cancer is my mission right now. The research and development of finding cures for this nasty disease is my passion.
My father ended up starting the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, which is on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. My mother started a school.
The relief of suffering is a great good. The curing of illness and disease - these are great human goods. This is the mission of medicine.
I met an Englishwoman in Africa. She said she became a doctor because she saw one of my pictures. That’s all I want – just one doctor in Africa.
My desire to be a physician had a lot to do with that sense of medicine as a ministry of healing, not just a science. And not even just a science and an art, but also a calling, also a ministry.
I never planned on doing a book about Paul Farmer or his organization. I met him in Haiti when I was on a magazine assignment. It's almost like his story sort of fell in my lap.
