Not All of Us Are Saints [Paperback]

David Hilfiker M.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 5, 1996

In 1983, Dr. David Hilfiker left his practice in rural Minnesota and began to practice poverty medicine in a ravaged community not far from the White House. Fascinating and deeply affecting, this is his elegantly written true story of that time. Previously published by Hill and Wang.


From the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although he broods that he falls short of the selflessness of Mother Teresa, Hilfiker's perceived lacks make his questing need for service, his humanity, comprehensible to those who find saintliness unnatural. For seven years the author ( Healing the Wounds ) practiced "poverty medicine" at Christ House, a Washington, D.C. medical recovery shelter for homeless men sponsored by the Church of the Saviour; he left in 1990 to found an AIDS shelter. Rarely have we been so powerfully forced to confront the plight of those who have been battered by homelessness, lack of education, poor nutrition and addiction; rarely have we been made to see how grossly inhospitable to the spirit is poverty. Holfiker does not allow us to disregard the helplessness of those who are unable to climb out of their own histories, even as he himself becomes frustrated that his patients often do not--sometimes cannot, under the conditions of their street lives--cooperate in their medical care. Along with case histories of his patients and accounts of his bouts with public welfare organizations, Hilfiker presents his well-reasoned criticisms of a society in which justice is procedural rather than distributive: "Wealth, opportunity and a good education are not equally available to all." Earning $34,000 a year at Christ House, and given a comfortable rent-free apartment at the shelter for himself, his wife and their three children, Hilfiker questions whether his privileged life compromises his integrity. He provides the answer with this journal of what happened when he lived and worked among those whose poverty results--as he makes us aware--from the very societal structures that gave him affluence.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Believing that poverty in our country is a matter of injustice and that justice is possible, Hilfiker (Healing the Wounds, LJ 11/ 1/85) gave up a private Minnesota practice in 1983 and moved his wife and three young children to Christ House, a Washington, D.C., inner-city medical shelter for homeless men, most of whom are black alcoholics or substance abusers. He finds that "coming face-to-face with unpleasant, ungrateful, and manipulative poor people is a misery all its own" and that the needs of Washington's homeless are for all practical purposes infinite. Telling what it is like for a middle-class doctor and his family to really live with the poor, Hilfiker clarifies the nature of poverty and its awful power to break the human spirit. His plain-spoken account of his following the "Mother Teresa Model" of poverty medicine radiates a certain nobility from which readers can draw hope and the recognition of humanity's oneness. An uncommon read.
James Swanton, Albert Einstein Coll. of Medicine, New York
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (March 5, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 034545975X
• ISBN-13: 978-0345459756
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,217,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I Found This Review On the Net, November 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Not All of Us Are Saints (Mass Market Paperback)

NOT ALL OF US Are Saints is a compellingly honest portrayal of both the brokenness of the people Hilfiker cares for day in and day out, and his intimate wrestlings with doubt, discouragement, and anger. The title speaks of the humility with which he approaches the task.

He confesses early in the book, while still living upstairs in Christ House:

"I live on the mainland of our society. No matter what route I choose, what decisions I make, I will always have a secure route back. The men downstairs live on an island, separated from me by waters deep and unbridgeable....

"The spiritual discipline of "voluntary poverty" has nothing in common with the oppression and despair of the ghetto. There is nothing beautiful or romantic in frostbitten toes or minds destroyed by alcohol, in lives crushed by the weight of indifferent history and cultural negligence....We betray those caught in [poverty's] web by romanticizing it or imagining that we-by divesting ourselves of some bits of our privilege-can choose to enter it. The landscape of poverty is inaccessible to most of us. We can barely imagine the scenery.

"But neither is it possible to live as a privileged person within the world of the very poor without undergoing some changes."

The stories Hilfiker relates about his patients are difficult to read. They start to sound tragically similar, and we are left longing for hope. But there are few "success stories" to tell, as anyone who is acquainted with the inner city knows.

Heartfelt--and heartrending--Not All of Us Are Saints paints a disturbing picture that America needs to see. It is important reading, both for those who have yet to have their eyes opened, and for those who live enmeshed in the issues with which Hilfiker daily struggles. It is honest, and truly courageous, guidance for the journey.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars GRIPPING TALE OF A MAN WHO CARES, December 28, 1998

By 

"earllantern" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not All of Us Are Saints: A Doctor's Journey With the Poor (Hardcover)

This book will make you want to do something to help those less fortunate. Although, I did not always agree with Hilfiker's assessments of situations and the individual's culpability in the status of his/her life, I do agree that poor people need more help than they are currently receiving in our society.

Hilfiker does a masterful job of avoiding the major pitfall of books in this vein. That is, each new case presented to the reader does not seem like a retread of the previous case. Another pitfall Hilfiker dodges is that his book is truly a journey, it is not a static snapshot of a couple of years on the front line. It begins with he and his family in one state of mind, and ends with them in another state of mind. To an extent, the reader experiences that journey with the Hilfiker family.

This is a very good book about a very important subject! It definitely makes me want to read more by Dr. Hilfiker.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A sincere account of the poverty most of us choose to ignore, October 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Not All of Us Are Saints (Mass Market Paperback)

Dr. Hilfiker's book does not raise the problems of poverty in America as **an** issue to consider in modern medicine, but **the** issue. In a speech he gave at Baylor in 1996 concerning poverty medicine in our country's capital, he identifies poverty as the **first** issue, the most pressing moral dilemma of the century. Dr. Hilfiker's address at Baylor and his insightful book, are keenly focussed on the key issues of poverty. By way of telling individual case histories about real people, Dr. Hilfiker both reveals his struggles with poverty medicine and the heart of the issues of poverty itself. It is a heart wrenching book but well worth the time and effort to read. The persistent problem of inequality of services, medical attention, opportunity for jobs etc. that plagues our society unnoticed is a travesty. And though Dr. Hilfiker explores a few problems that stem from governmental neglect or cuts and bureaucratic misdirection, in large part he describes it as the rest of our individual selfishness and growing neglect of community. What the dilemma calls for is communal action, some kind of a societal effort. Even as an active practioner of poverty medicine, though, Dr. Hilfiker admits, "My work puts me in daily contact with poor people, but the fog between us most often seems impenetrable. Friendship - as one might normally define it - has not been possible, and a real understanding of who my patients are has, I suspect eluded me." If one who works daily with these people cannot assure us that he understands the full scope of the problem, than how can academics, politicians or legislators who make policy regarding such people, presume to know anything? There is that part of our culture today that lives from day to day wondering if they will still be alive tomorrow, not if religion and politics will ever come into a healthy realtionship. I think among other things this book calls us to a higher standard than just political rhetoric and debate, it calls us as citizens to get involved.