Rough Sleepers

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The powerful story of an inspiring doctor who made a difference, by helping to create a program to care for Bostons homeless communityby the Pulitzer Prizewinning, New York Times bestselling author of Mountains Beyond MountainsI couldnt put Rough Sleepers down. I am left in awe of the human spirit and inspired to do better.Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for StoneA BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, BookPage, Chicago Public LibraryTracy Kidder has been described by The Baltimore Sun as a master of the nonfiction narrative. In Rough Sleepers, Kidder tells the story of Dr. Jim OConnell, a gifted man who invented a community of care for a citys unhoused population, including those who sleep on the streetsthe rough sleepers.After Jim OConnell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency at Massachusetts General, the hospitals 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? That year turned into OConnells lifes calling. Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. OConnell and his colleagues as they work with thousands of homeless patients, some of whom we meet in this illuminating book. We travel with OConnell as he navigates the city streets at night, offering medical care, socks, soup, empathy, humor, and friendship to some of the citys most endangered citizens. He emphasizes a style of medicine in which patients come first, joined with their providers in what he calls a system of friends.Much as he did with Paul Farmer in Mountains Beyond Mountains, Kidder explores how Jim OConnell and a dedicated group of people have improved countless lives by facing and addressing one of American societys most difficult problems, instead of looking away.