Tracy Kidder has an uncanny ability to find and portray saints among us. Credible saints. For one, the late Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, in "Mountains Beyond Mountains." And here, 20 years later, "Doctah Jim" O'Connell. Doctor Jim first learns to listen to the homeless from women who tend to them, women who make clear their strong doubts that he can put aside the privilege of his education in order to help. But he proves them wrong by serving his internship, poignantly depicted by Kidder, literally at feet of the homeless, treating those worn feet for months. That passage will stay with me forever. Listening, or hearing and understanding, depends on humility and that seems from Kidder's portrait, the root of Dr. Jim's great strength and success. A message for our times. And a message that also seems reflected in the many memorable portrait photos of Dr. Jim's patients, only one of which includes him and then only at a side angle.

Tracy Kidder has an uncanny ability to find and portray saints among us. Credible saints. For one, the late Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, in "Mountains Beyond Mountains." And here, 20 years later, "Doctah Jim" O'Connell. Doctor Jim first learns to listen to the homeless from women who tend to them, women who make clear their strong doubts that he can put aside the privilege of his education in order to help. But he proves them wrong by serving his internship, poignantly depicted by Kidder, literally at feet of the homeless, treating those worn feet for months. That passage will stay with me forever. Listening, or hearing and understanding, depends on humility and that seems from Kidder's portrait, the root of Dr. Jim's great strength and success. A message for our times. And a message that also seems reflected in the many memorable portrait photos of Dr. Jim's patients, only one of which includes him and then only at a side angle.

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