Ophelia Dahl of PIH ~ Exceptional Woman Spot!

What better way to wake on a Sunday morning at 7:30am than to the inspirational words enabled by Gay Vernon & Candy O'Terry on their Exceptional Women radio show on Magic 106.7. This morning Gay interviewed Ophelia Dahl, co-founder and Executive Director of Partners in Health (PIH), provisioners of health care and social services to the poorest of the poor. At 18, Dahl met Dr Paul Farmer, then 23, in Haiti some 25 years ago. They founded PIH to do something practical and tangible about the illness and poverty around them. They started by focusing on one small area in Haiti, organizing and running one health clinic. Today PIH operates in a half-dozen countries, employs over 5,000 people, mostly locals, and has influenced global health policy. Dahl shared aspects of her personal and family stories as well, including her recent time as a Davis Scholar at Wellesley College where she was asked to give the 2006 Commencement Address. Wonderful! (For more about the PIH story, I highly recommend Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains)