In 1983, Dr. David Hilfiker left his rural practice in Minnesota and moved with his wife and three young children to the inner city of Washington, D.C. There he began work as a physician at Community of Hope Health Services. Two years later he offered his services to Christ House, a medical recovery shelter for homeless men.
In Not All of Us Are Saints: A Doctor's Journey with the Poor Dr. Hilfiker chronicles his experiences in poverty medicine over a decade. He describes these years as "a journey that began both as a struggle against injustice on behalf of those abandoned by the rest of us and as a search for my own spiritual center."
In the midst of his accounts of the men, women, and children he treated, Dr. Hilfiker reveals his disappointment at the deteriorating relationship between government and the poor. He is also discouraged by the medical establishment's widespread refusal to honor their ties to the indigent, and society's increased indifference to the plight of the homeless.
The author laments the situation of those who have internalized their poverty and given in to hopelessness. Hilfiker realizes that because of his education and privilege, he never has to live without a safety net. Many of the poor — who are invisible even to their caretakers — are not as lucky.
Not All of Us Are Saints is both grim and inspirational. It makes it clear that America's present numbness to the grief and pain of the poor is a sin of mammoth proportions. On the other hand, it presents one good man's earnest effort to live a compassionate life. On Hilfiker's spiritual journey, he squares off against his shadow and battles to keep from burning out in the face of so much suffering and tragedy. He may not be a saint but this caring doctor is a moral mentor worthy of our respect.