We were honored to kick off this year’s conference with a virtual conversation between Dr. Paul Farmer, preeminent global infectious disease physician, and medical anthropologist, and fellow medical anthropologist and WAC Board Member, Dr. Linda Whiteford.

Dr. Farmer, long recognized for his innovative and ground-breaking work in preventing and caring for infectious diseases such as Ebola, cholera, Multiple Drug Resistant (MDR) TB, will address what lessons we can apply to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Our opening session lead introduced a stream of topics to be covered over the four-day conference including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, culture, international relations, and humanity.