Doctor and medical anthropologist Paul Farmer, co-founder of the healthcare organization Partners In Health (PIH), returned to campus Saturday night to give the keynote address for the FACE AIDS National Conference.

Speaking to a mostly-full Memorial Auditorium, Farmer covered PIH’s “scale-up” of healthcare services in Rwanda and praised the work of Stanford’s own FACE AIDS and Dance Marathon, whose fundraising directly contributes to PIH’s clinics.

Sponsored by the ASSU, FACE AIDS, Dance Marathon and the Graduate School of Business’s Center for Social Innovation, Farmer’s address was attended by students, professors and community members alike, though in fewer numbers than last year’s talk.

“Because I was here only 11-and-a-half months ago, I thought I would give an update on what we’ve been up to with your money,” Farmer said, referring to the $150,000 raised for PIH by Dance Marathon last February.

Farmer admitted that before the success of last year’s 24-hour dance party, he had been skeptical of the event’s fundraising capabilities.

“Even the night of Dance Marathon I said, ‘How are you going to raise $150,000 by dancing?’” Farmer said. “You’re not Jennifer Lopez.”

The funds, he said, have gone towards the “scale-up” or “contiguous spread” of healthcare in Rwanda according to the PIH healthcare model.

“We feel that in medicine and public health there hasn’t been a lot of focus on delivery, on implementation,” Farmer said.

PIH’s dedication to finding a successful model is changing this lack of focus, he said. The community-based model, which employs local health workers for in-home consultations, makes comprehensive care available to all. He said the program also provides holistic care for entire communities, including food, education, clean water and income-generating projects.

“We’re doing three things at once,” Farmer said of PIH’s work, “taking care of sick people, rebuilding infrastructure and training lots of people.”

Farmer — whose work to cure infectious diseases and bring Western standards of healthcare to poverty-ridden pockets of Haiti and Peru is chronicled in Tracy Kidder’s book “Mountains Beyond Mountains” — is renowned for his commitment to health as a human right and dedication to providing the best standards of care to all patients, regardless of cost.

Farmer illustrated PIH’s successes Saturday night with a slideshow presentation showing before-and-after shots of former patients and the recently renovated Rwinkwavu clinic.

Flipping to a slide comparing before-and-after photos of the clinic’s pediatrics ward, Farmer elicited gasps and audible “wows” from the audience.

“Since we’re in Silicon Valley, I can say it’s not rocket science, it’s not that difficult,” Farmer said. “You lay down the tile, you clean it up, you paint it up, you put in the beds. It’s not that hard.”

With the proper supplies, treating human cases is not impossible either, he said. He gave the example of Jennifer, a reportedly orphaned toddler suffering from AIDS, tuberculosis and malnutrition, who was brought in by a community health worker, treated and then recovered to a point at which her mother came to claim her.

“If you can meet children like [Jennifer] and get them better, get the mother involved in this work, inspire the community health worker to continue work like this, get people involved in HIV prevention, that might be called starting some sort of virtuous social cycle,” Farmer said.

Supplying food, employment and education for patients “should not be something we’re embarrassed about,” he added, “but something we should try to coordinate in our ambitious efforts.”

But implementing such a model takes money, which is where fundraising efforts like FACE AIDS and Dance Marathon are vital. While Farmer said the Rwandan government has set a date for when investments from its tax base will take over from foreign investments in healthcare, it is still long off.

Meanwhile, students involved in FACE AIDS and Dance Marathon will continue fundraising, inspired by the path Farmer has taken.

FACE AIDS National Events Director Silvia Loica-Mersa ‘08 cited two reasons for bringing Farmer to campus for a second year in a row.

“The first thing is giving people who didn’t get a chance to see him at the sold-out event last year a chance to see him this year,” she said. “And now that FACE AIDS is phasing out its pin making in Zambia and moving to Rwanda, we wanted to show people where their money is going.”

Students in the audience welcomed the chance to see a popular role model for a second time.

“He inspired my career path,” said John Thomas ‘10, who plans to pursue medicine and focus on international health. Thomas, a member of FACE AIDS, said he could appreciate this year’s address even more than the last after being exposed to the group’s work.

Farmer, too, welcomed the trip back to the Farm.

“It’s very promising to be able to come back a year later and say, ‘Well, it worked,’” Farmer said of the Rwandan scale-up. “I look forward to coming back in future years to report more success.”