Jim Bailey

DR. JIM BAILEY has dedicated his career to empowering people to take charge of their health. But after working as a physician, professor, community health advocate, and healthcare researcher for ten years, he realized that his scientific papers on improving health care quality were not likely to reach the general public. For Americans to get safe, effective and affordable health care, they first had to know why and how they were getting scammed. An avid reader of novels and lover of the classics, Dr. Bailey became convinced that America needed a story to point the way to the true healing Americans need most.

Dr. Bailey’s interest in writing fiction predated his medical career. After studying the great books at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, he took creative writing for a semester at the University of Alabama, and quickly discovered he did not yet know the story he needed to tell. As he struggled to discern his career path, a family friend recruited him to work in rural Alabama on a child survival project. To his surprise, the experience sparked an interest in the healing professions and he enrolled at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, where he earned his masters in public health and medical degree. Dr. Bailey completed his residency in primary care internal medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle and stayed on an additional year as a chief medical resident. He moved to Memphis in 1994 to become professor of medicine and preventive medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

In 2004 on sabbatical in Florence, Italy, Bailey began writing what he thought would be a work of narrative nonfiction about the path to better health care. A year later, he realized that his manuscript was taking the form of a novel—a story with fictional characters, but one firmly set in the real world that would reveal the disturbing truth about our broken healthcare system. Here, finally, was the story he was meant to tell. He wrote at daybreak, nights, and weekends for ten years to complete the story of the awakening of young Dr. Don Newman in The End of Healing.

Today, Dr. Bailey holds the Robert S. Pearce Endowed Chair in Internal Medicine at the University of Tennessee, where he continues to care for the sick and teach doctors in training. He directs the Center for Health System Improvement, an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to demonstrating how we can best improve health care for everyday Americans. He is principal investigator for a large study of health coaching and motivational text messaging aimed at helping people with uncontrolled diabetes improve their self-care. And he recently led the award winning SafeMed program to show how to simultaneously improve care and reduce costs for patients experiencing frequent hospitalizations.

Dr. Bailey is a fellow in the American College of Physicians and has published over seventy journal articles, book chapters, and editorials. His research appears in many peer-reviewed medical journals, including JAMA, Journal of General Internal Medicine, and Annals of Internal Medicine. His first novel, The End of Healing, gives voice to the many victims of our dysfunctional healthcare system whose stories need to be heard if we are to learn the truth about our broken healthcare system and find the path to true healing.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT TO RECLAIM HEALTH CARE THAT HEALS

Share The End of Healing with your family, friends, neighbors, and health care providers. Go to www.EndofHealing.com to learn more, get updates, or ask Dr. Bailey to speak or lead a discussion in your community.