num_pages: 320
description: In Rough Sleepers Tracy Kidder shows how one person can make a difference as he tells the story of Dr. Jim OConnell a man who invented ways to create a community of care for a citys unhoused population including those who sleep on the streetsthe rough sleepers. When Jim OConnell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital the chief of medicine made a proposal: Would he defer a prestigious fellowship and spend a year helping to create an organization to bring health care to homeless citizens? Jim took the job because he felt he couldnt refuse. But that year turned into his lifes calling. Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. OConnell and his colleagues as they served their thousands of homeless patients. In this book we travel with OConnell as he navigates the city offering medical care socks soup empathy humor and friendship to some of the citys most vulnerable citizens. He emphasizes a style of medicine in which patients come first joined with their providers in what he calls a system of friends.
language: English
title: Rough Sleepers
publisher: Random House