Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People

Kidder quotes Jim from a public lecture describing how he came into his profession. He discusses how he became a doctor treating the unhoused population of Boston and why he continues doing so. In part, “sadness and moral outrage” keep him going (19). More than that is how much he can offer the people he treats. While he didn’t choose the job, he feels fortunate to have found it.

Jim was born in Newport, Rhode Island, and studied philosophy first at Notre Dame and later at the University of Cambridge. He left Cambridge and came back to Newport, where he tended bars for a short time before moving to Vermont. He then decided to be a lawyer but first went on a trip with friends from Cambridge.

While visiting the Isle of Man during a week-long motorcycle race called the Tourist Trophy, he witnesses a motorcycle crash. While his friends search for help, Jim stays behind with the injured man who has suffered a compound fracture in his leg. As Jim waits with him, he listens and talks with the man—a skill, Kidder observes, that was strengthened by Jim’s days as a bartender. Jim feels that, had he been able to mend the man’s leg, the moment would have been perfect.