Photo: Monte Dodge
Mary Murphy
Mary Murphy grew up in a large family near Washington, D.C. Following college and a year of teaching, she wanted to learn more about the world and served two years in the Peace Corps as an English teacher and community health worker in Nepal.
Soon after returning to the United States, she accepted an invitation to work in the Dhorpatan Health Project in west Nepal.
When the project ended over two years later, she and Mike Payne married, moved to England, and welcomed the birth of their daughter, Jessica. On their return to the United States, Mary earned a nursing degree and a master’s degree. Since then, she keeps learning about and working with healthcare system challenges and opportunities, especially in rural areas. Her public health and independent consulting work helped establish and expand primary healthcare services in many underserved communities in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and California. She currently serves as a board member of a public hospital district and as a volunteer with nonprofit organizations in her rural community.
Mary has presented at state and national conferences on community healthcare and has coauthored research articles in Women and Health, Journal of Adolescent Research, and Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Her 1983 article published in Journal of the Institute of Medicine (Kathmandu) was based on her 1975 interviews with Nepalis and Tibetans in Dhorpatan about their health beliefs and practices.
Far from the Road is her first book.
Co-Authors: