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

by Selwyn O. Rogers

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 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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics

208 pages, Paperback

Published July 7, 2026

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 stars for an impassioned book by a trauma surgeon who sometimes treats up to 20 patients suffering gunshot wounds in a single shift. The author works at the University of Chicago Hospital Trauma Center. This trauma center is located in the South side of Chicago, where a large number of gunshot victims happen. There was no trauma center in the South side of Chicago when Dr. Selwyn Rogers arrived in Chicago. Thousands of people were being shot every year in the South Side. Dr. Rogers pressed his case with the hospital, pointing out that too many lives were lost during the long ambulance ride to the West Side of Chicago.
This book is about solutions to the epidemic of gun violence plaguing the USA. He proposes several solutions, including stronger laws limiting access to guns nationwide. While the state of Illinois has strong laws on who can purchase guns, the two bordering states of Wisconsin and Indiana do not. The Indiana state line is a short drive from the South Side of Chicago.
He also talks about conflict resolution, i.e. settling arguments peacefully, instead of with guns. He cites the work of Youth Guidance's Becoming a Man(BAM), a school based group offering counseling to students grades 7-12. There are other groups also working on this idea, including peacekeepers who walk the South Side of Chicago. I was a volunteer mediator with the Better Business Bureau and Child and Family Services for 10 years. Mediation does work.
One quote: "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC), there were 46, 728 firearm related deaths in the United States in 2023. These deaths, along with the far greater number of gun-related injuries and maimings that occurred in 2023, can be sorted into the following main types of gun violence: mass shootings, accidental discharges, intimate partner violence, homicides, and suicides."
He mentions that in 2022, 90% of firearm-related deaths resulted from homicides and suicides.
Thank You North Atlantic Books for sending me this eBook through Booktrovert.
Cross posted on BookBub, StoryGraph, Edelweiss+, and Amazon.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book was so good and a great summary of the issues of gun violence in America and how this could be changed. I was expecting it to focus more of mass shootings but I found the sections not on this some of the most interesting, such as the part on suicide. It was great to hear about the issues from a surgeons perspective and I like that he had thoughts from overs such as colleagues in the book.
It’s quite short - 160 or so pages but I think that was perfect given its depressing and heavy the subject is. I especially liked the first half as this included more stories from the authors career and the only way that the book could be improved for me would be to have more of these anecdotes dotted throughout the latter half of the book. The author also got the perfect balance of shocking but not overly graphic which I appreciated. Overall a five star read and a very accessible, and nice to read non-fiction.

[Annotations&Air · Rating 4 out of 5]

★★★★★

Healing the Gun Violence Epidemic resonated deeply with me because so much of Dr. Selwyn Rogers’s approach reflects what I have come to believe through my own work with people navigating systems that were never designed to serve everyone equally.

Rogers writes as a trauma surgeon who has treated the physical consequences of gun violence, but he refuses to begin the story with the gunshot wound. Instead, he asks us to look at everything that came before it: concentrated poverty, segregation, institutional racism, community disinvestment, limited access to resources, and generations of policy decisions that have shaped which communities experience the greatest risk.

That perspective matters to me. In social services, education, public health, and now holistic defense work, I have repeatedly seen how easily we reduce people to the worst moment of their lives while ignoring the conditions surrounding that moment. Rogers resists that simplification. The people in this book are never statistics or problems to be solved. They are people situated within families, communities, histories, and systems.

I was especially moved by his insistence that gun violence is preventable. This is not a book that documents suffering and leaves us there. Rogers examines what has failed, what is working, and what becomes possible when communities receive sustained investment rather than attention only after tragedy occurs.

There is a great deal of grief in these pages, but there is also hope, and it is the kind of hope I find most meaningful: hope rooted in action, evidence, community, and our willingness to build something better.

Rogers reminds us that saving a life in the trauma bay is only one form of healing. Real prevention requires asking why so many people arrive there in the first place, and then having the courage to change the conditions that made it possible.

[Janet Hyde · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Selwyn Rogers, a trauma surgeon, takes us inside the University of Chicago Medicine's trauma center on Chicago's South Side, where gunshot victims are brought regularly, sometimes even hourly. This book was a page turner for me. Rogers chronicles in detail how the trauma team cares for the patients, and how the shooting has ripple effects that go far beyond the victim -- to their mother and father, brothers and sisters, friends, and the community. All suffer trauma. Rogers seeks out the root causes of this epidemic, placing special emphasis on disinvestment in under-resourced urban neighborhoods, and the racism that leads to the disinvestment and lack of opportunities for Black youth in those neighborhoods. Rogers offers well-conceived solutions, including community violence interventions and hospital violence interventions. This is an important book.

[Michael Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Healing the Gun Violence Epidemic approaches gun violence through the firsthand perspective of a trauma surgeon who has spent years treating its consequences in Chicago. Selwyn O. Rogers combines patient stories, personal experience, public health analysis, and discussion of the conditions that contribute to violence and community harm. The book’s emphasis on rebuilding communities and restoring hope adds a forward looking dimension to a difficult subject. Its focus on both the human cost and possible approaches to addressing violence makes it relevant to readers interested in medicine, public health, community development, and social policy.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was fantastic.

Seeing gun violence through the eyes of Selwyn Rogers who is a trauma surgeon in Chicago was incredibly heart breaking. It brought more perspective and ways that as a society we need to work at the root cause of it all.

He shares personal stories while blending history here in the US to showcase how racism, poverty, lack of support etc all play a role.

I highly suggest everyone add this to their list of non fiction reads.

Thank you North Atlantic Books for the gifted copy.

[Maura Proser · Rating 3.5 out of 5]

This was good, and i enjoyed hearing his stories. I liked that it wasn’t too long, because most nonfiction books are way too long. Yet it was longer than it needed to be - he was very repetitive. His solutions were all true and necessary. Also still surface level in many ways. Overall a worthy listen.

[Theodore Chang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not put this book down. Provides many insights into gun violence and its impact on everyone. Interesting and thought provoking accounts throughout the book.