PAST AS PROLOGUE: LESSONS ON LIFE AND DOCTORING FROM BOSTON’S ROUGH SLEEPERS 1985 – 2017

The 8-block trek from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to Pine Street Inn in July of 1985 was a journey into unknown terrain, and I was an accidental tourist. My original plan for an oncology fellowship was interrupted by a summons 3 months earlier to the office of my Chief of Medicine, Dr. John Potts. He and my longtime mentor, Dr. Tom Durant, were exuberant about a new grant received by Mayor Raymond Flynn and the City of Boston to set up a program to integrate the care of homeless individuals and families within the mainstream of Boston’s academic teaching hospitals and community health centers. A feisty coalition of homeless persons and advocates, committed to social justice and abhorrent of charity (“charity is scraps from the table, justice is a seat at the table”) emphasized that quality care was predicated upon continuity and demanded a full time doctor. As gently as Drs. Potts and Durant posed the question, I was savvy enough to recognize a rhetorical question, accepted the position, and deferred my fellowship for a year. I was able to salvage a commitment from MGH to embrace the new health care for the homeless program as integral to the hospital’s mission, and 32 years later I remain beyond grateful for that unwavering support