New book traces ATSU graduate’s path from homelessness to the operating room (Rhoiney '07)
“No One’s Coming to Save You: The Escape of David Rhoiney,” a biography of the surgeon who delivered A.T. Still University’s commencement address in May, will be published Dec. 8 by Infinite Books.
The book, by author Ed William, opens in 1989 at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, when Rhoiney is 5 years old. According to the publisher’s description, his father drives away one morning and does not return, leaving the boy to care for his mother, who struggled with mental illness. The family moves through Compton, Oakland and Long Beach, cycling through homeless shelters and at one point living out of a Volkswagen Jetta.
Rhoiney enlisted in the Navy in 2002 at age 17 and graduated from the Naval Academy in 2007, according to Emory University, where he is now a vascular surgery fellow. He served as an information warfare officer before shifting to medicine in 2010 and later became head of general surgery at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Guantánamo Bay.
He earned his medical degree from ATSU’s Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2014.
BZ '07!