You don’t need to be a superhero to make your community a healthier place. You just need to care about others.

Radiologist Ronald Saul, MD, got to know many of the homeless in Los Angeles, and those feelings led him to extend a helping hand. "You realize they aren't that different from you or me,” he says. “They had a hard time in their lives, which they couldn't handle, and they ended up on the street. But I've also seen them turn their lives around."

Saul, along with radiologist Keith Terasaki, MD, got doctors to volunteer to read the X-rays that homeless people need to prove they don’t have tuberculosis. Without that proof, they can be barred from temporary shelters and forced to sleep on the streets.

In two years, the program has grown to include eight doctors and all 17 radiology residents at our Los Angeles Medical Center on Sunset. Find out how the free X-ray reading program has helped keep a roof over the heads of countless homeless men, women, and children.

filed in: Thriving Communities
subjects: community-health, disease-prevention, prevention