Not All of Us Are Saints begins with the tale of a midnight pursuit between two men: one, drunken and homeless, and the other, white-coated and desperate. The drunken man is afraid of what will happen if he drops his one source of comfort and respite -- alcohol -- and the white-coated man, his physician, is afraid of what will happen if he doesn't. Dr. David Hilfiker, a physician in urban Washington, DC, is for the first time in his life jointly overwhelmed by the vast limits of care inherent in "poverty medicine" and in his own humanity. After work as a rural doctor for seven years, in 1983, Hilfiker and his wife chose to uproot their family and move to Washington, DC, to begin work in a clinic for the poor and homeless: Community of Hope Health Services. In his memoir, Not All of Us Are Saints: A Doctor's Journey with the Poor , Hilfiker poignantly relates his experience as a physician and resident with DC's urban homeless and poor. Hilfiker's struggles raise the toughest questions our nation faces on the ground in poverty, everyday. Hilfiker uses vignettes to highlight the inadequacies of our healthcare system and more broadly, the horrors of an unjust society. In twelve chapters, he traces his journey in urban medicine through stories of encounters with people all over the spectrum of poverty, homelessness, and disease. He meditates on the cyclicality of poverty and its intricately oppressive violence on his patients. In describing the difficulties