Healing the Gun Violence Epidemic: Ending Violence, Rebuilding Communities, and a Trauma Surgeon's Vision for Restoring Hope

For readers seeking solutions to finally end the gun violence that kills tens of thousands of people each year in the United States-- from a Harvard-trained trauma surgeon treating victims in Chicago

If hope for ending gun violence can take hold in Chicago's South Side, then it can take hold anywhere. The impoverished neighborhoods there are among the most dangerous in all of America--a nation in which injuries from firearms are the top reason why children die.

In 2018, after decades of treating patients in inner cities that have suffered from decades of disinvestment and institutional racism, Dr. Selwyn Rogers founded a trauma center in the battleground known by many as "Chiraq." He has treated thousands of people suffering from gunshot wounds. He's told loved ones that they lost a child, a father, a dear friend. And he's initiated change in the community, talking to those in the middle of what can feel like endless bloodshed.

Healing the Gun Violence Epidemic shares the stories of the victims Dr. Rogers has met in his work, and the lessons he's taken from bearing witness to so much trauma. The book traces the origins of gun violence in the South Side--including decades of generational poverty bred from too little aid--and compares the lives of the young people he treats to his' own path: from humble beginnings to using his Ivy League education to aid others and, he hopes, to end the cycles that have kept countless people trapped in never-ending agony. In the end, Dr. Rogers shares his insights into what policies have failed and which solutions have succeeded--making him believe that the devastation and trauma can end--not just in Chicago, but across the United States.

Author: Selwyn O. Rogers
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 07/07/2026
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.35lbs
Size: 8.91h x 5.91w x 0.71d
ISBN: 9798889842477

About the Author
Selwyn Rogers, Jr., MD, MPH, FACS, serves as the section chief of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery and the James E. Bowman, Jr., MD Professor at The University of Chicago Medicine, where he also helped to launch the Violence Recovery Program. Dr. Rogers is an acclaimed trauma and critical care surgeon and public health expert who has served in leadership capacities at health centers across the country, including the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), Temple University School, and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. In 2024, he was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Rogers earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard College magna cum laude and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He completed both his surgery residency and surgical critical care fellowship at BWH. Dr. Rogers also holds a master's degree in public health from Vanderbilt University.