David Hilfiker

David Hilfiker (born February 12, 1945) is an American physician, author, and social justice advocate. A family physician by training, he is known for his writing on medical error and for his work with poor and homeless patients in Washington, D.C. In the 1980s and 1990s he helped found Christ House, a medical recovery shelter for homeless people, and Joseph's House, a community and hospice for formerly homeless people with AIDS and cancer.

Hilfiker's 1984 essay "Facing Our Mistakes", published in The New England Journal of Medicine, became an influential account of physician error, guilt, and professional silence around mistakes. He later wrote the books Healing the Wounds: A Physician Looks at His Work, Not All of Us Are Saints: A Doctor's Journey with the Poor, and Urban Injustice: How Ghettos Happen.

After leaving the Minnesota practice, Hilfiker spent a sabbatical year in Finland from 1982 to 1983.

The article attracted both criticism and support from physicians.

Poverty medicine and homelessness Hilfiker's second book, Not All of Us Are Saints: A Doctor's Journey with the Poor, was published by Hill and Wang in 1994. The book recounts his move from rural practice to inner-city medicine in Washington, D.C., and examines what Hilfiker called the practice of medicine among people living in poverty. The book argues that concentrated urban poverty in the United States is produced by structural forces, including limited employment, inadequate health care and child care, poor schools, the criminal justice system, and the history of racial discrimination. He wrote about the experience on the blog Watching the Lights Go Out and in essays for AgingCare.com. In October 2013, Hilfiker wrote that the diagnosis had been downgraded to "subjective cognitive complaints" and that Alzheimer's disease was then considered unlikely. He described the blog as an effort to reduce fear and embarrassment surrounding Alzheimer's disease and other cognitive impairments.

Personal life Hilfiker married Marja Kaikkonen, a teacher, on June 21, 1969. They have three children. He has lived in Washington, D.C., where he continued to write, teach, and lecture on poverty, politics, health care, and related issues.

Selected bibliography

Books

Articles and essays

Awards and honors Hilfiker received a first-place trade-category award from the American Medical Writers Association in 1986. In 1994, he received a Christopher Award for Not All of Us Are Saints. In 2000, the American Medical Association's Virtual Mentor presented him with its award for his work with homeless patients with AIDS.