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Retired Physicians Volunteer to Serve the Uninsured

Mike Mitka

JAMA. 2002;288:2253-2254.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Because Jack McConnell, MD, likes giving rides to hitchhikers, thousands of uninsured people now receive free medical care.

The 77-year-old pediatrician, scientist, and business executive—who directed the program for the development of Tylenol tablets—moved in 1989 to a gated community on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina, planning a routine retirement. But chance encounters with hitchhikers changed his life—and theirs as well.

Jack McConnell, MD, the retired physician who founded Volunteers in Medicine. (Photo credit: IWL Photography)

Remembering his own lean years as a child when walking was a necessity because his family could not afford a car, McConnell had developed a lifelong habit of befriending hitchhikers. Now, after he passed through the gates as he drove from his Hilton Head home, McConnell would find himself amid the poorer residences, where many of the island workers lived. When he picked up these people on their way to work, . . . [Full Text of this Article]