Thomas Fisher, MD, MPH: The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER

Through twenty years of clinical practice, time as a White House fellow, and work as a healthcare entrepreneur, Thomas Fisher, M.D., MPH has seen firsthand how our country’s healthcare system can reflect the worst of society: treating the poor as expendable to provide top-notch care to a few. The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER is the riveting story of a year in the life of an emergency room through Dr. Fisher’s eyes as he tries to steer his patients and colleagues through a crushing pandemic and a violent summer, amidst a healthcare system that seems determined to leave them behind.

Dr. Fisher brings us through his shift as he works with limited time and resources to treat incoming patients. And when he goes home, he remains haunted by what he sees throughout his day. The brutal wait times, the disconnect between hospital executives and policymakers and the people they’re supposed to serve, and the inaccessible solutions that could help his patients. To cope with the relentless onslaught exacerbated by COVID, Fisher begins writing letters to patients and colleagues—letters he will never send—explaining it all to them as best he can.

Dr. Fisher is a board-certified emergency medicine physician at The University of Chicago Medical Center. Previously, Dr. Fisher served as a 2010-11 White House Fellow, and as the special assistant to Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, he worked on ACA regulations and the HHS Action Plan for Reducing Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.

Dr. Fisher will be in conversation with award-winning journalist Natalie Y. Moore, author of the new book The Billboard, a play about abortion, and the acclaimed book The South Side: A Portrait of Chicago and American Segregation (2016). Ms. Moore’s reporting tackles race, housing, economic development, food injustice, and violence and her work has been broadcast on the BBC and Marketplace, and on NPR’s Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition.