Tracy Kidder’s 2003 bestseller, Mountains Beyond Mountains, profiled worldwide humanitarian and activist Dr. Paul Farmer, who died in 2022. In Rough Sleepers (8.5 hours), Kidder focuses his consideration nearer to house with a shifting portrait of Dr. Jim O’Connell, head of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. After graduating from Harvard University Medical School within the Nineteen Eighties, O’Connell deferred a prestigious oncology fellowship to pursue what was alleged to be a one-year stint offering medical care to Boston’s homeless residents. Decades later, O’Connell has constructed a multimillion-dollar program that serves as a mannequin for different cities searching for to enhance public well being companies for his or her homeless populations.
Rough Sleepers strikes between a chronicle of O’Connell’s life and profession and Kidder’s present-day observations of O’Connell and his colleagues at work. Kidder’s narration (with a Boston accent that he dials up and down as wanted) provides additional intimacy to the ebook’s very private tales. It feels nearly like we’re driving alongside within the van with O’Connell as he checks on his sufferers. Listeners will join with the humanity of O’Connell’s sufferers and admire the medical professionals who tirelessly deal with them with the care and compassion they deserve.
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