Didi Bertrand Farmer: In Paul Farmer’s Beautiful Garden of Global Health Equity

This week, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published a powerful reflection by Didi Bertrand Farmer on the life and legacy of PIH Co-founder Dr. Paul Farmer.

In her essay, “In Paul Farmer’s Beautiful Garden of Global Health Equity: Reflections on the Third Remembrance of His Passing,” Didi uses Paul’s love of gardening as a metaphor for his lifelong commitment to advancing global health equity.  

“Through his contributions to global health, mainly through the work of Partners in Health (PIH), he showed us that tending to our world is like tending to a garden, a place that — when nurtured with care — could yield health, justice, and opportunity for all.”

Paul often incorporated gardens into PIH clinics around the world, recognizing that beauty and nature could provide dignity, solace, and healing. Didi recalls:

“Under the warm sun of the Rwinkwavu District Hospital in Rwanda, a country where our family served for 10 years, on any given day, I would spot Paul working side by side with his colleagues and a team of men and women moving giant rocks, planting trees and thousands of plants and flowers, and carving out a pond near the inpatient ward and the training center. My desk scissors would frequently disappear, borrowed for trimming plants or cutting flowers into beautiful bouquets for patients’ wards and even for my desk. These gardens became not only a source of beauty but of knowledge and economic opportunity, as former patients and family members gained employment tending to them.”

Originally written in February 2025, the piece reminds us that through education, partnership, and plants, Paul left a garden for us to tend to. “Paul’s garden was never meant to be his alone. It is ours now to protect, nurture, and expand.”

Read the full article on the NEJM website.