Raine Visiting Professor Lecture – 8 November 2018
Dr James O’Connell
will present a Raine Lecture entitled:
Healthcare for people who are homeless: reflections from the Boston experience
on Thursday 8 November 2018 at 12.00 pm
at McCusker Auditorium, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research
All welcome
Dr O’Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1982, and completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). In 1985, Dr O’Connell began fulltime clinical work with homeless individuals as the founding physician of the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which now serves over 13,000 homeless persons each year in two hospital-based clinics and in more than 60 shelters and outreach sites in Boston. With his colleagues, Dr O’Connell established the nation’s first medical respite program for homeless persons – this innovative program now provides acute and sub-acute, pre- and post-operative, and palliative and end-of-life care for people who are homeless. Working with the MGH Laboratory of Computer Science, Dr O’Connell also designed and implemented the nation’s first computerized medical record for a homeless program in 1995. From 1989 until 1996, Dr O’Connell served as the National Program Director of the Homeless Families Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Dr O’Connell is the editor of The Health Care of Homeless Persons, and his articles have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Circulation, the American Journal of Public Health, the Journal of Clinical Ethics, and several other medical journals.
His insights from Boston are timely for WA, with over 9000 people homeless in this State on the 2016 Census night, and the WA Government’s Sustainable Health Review highlighting the need to better address the health needs of vulnerable population groups.
University Host:
Associate Professor Lisa Wood
School of Population and Global Health
University of Western Australia
Telephone: 6488 7809
Email: lisa.wood@uwa.edu.au
