Dr. James (Jim) Hughes has lived and worked all over the United States as a physician specializing in pediatrics. He and his wife Gillian are enjoying retirement at Harvest Hill where he can be found walking the beautiful trails surrounding the community every morning at dawn.
Dr. Hughes graduated from high school in Exeter, New Hampshire and earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford before joining the United States Navy. After primarily serving on an aircraft carrier in the Far East for three years he was discharged and attended Harvard Medical School, graduating “cum laude.”
After graduating Dr. Hughes joined a Johns Hopkins University project as an assistant professor in the medical school and school of public health while studying pneumonia in children in Calcutta (now known as Kolkata), India. He returned to the United States, spending two years with Dartmouth Health before leaving to run a private clinic. He also helped develop a new HMO in East Lansing, Michigan and joined the Georgetown University HMO in Maryland which Kaiser Permanente bought. He spent 18 years with Kaiser Permanente in Washington D.C. and found time to earn a Master’s of Public Health from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Dr. Hughes and his first wife of 56 years had four children, a daughter, and three sons. Together he and his wife Gillian are the parents of five children including her daughter. After retiring from medicine he and Gillian moved to Vermont and built a house on Lake Fairlee where they lived for 25 years before making the move to Harvest Hill in 2022.
Dr. Hughes and his wife have always been interested in the arts and Gillian is an original founder of the Parish Players theater group in Vermont. He has been in over a dozen performances with Opera North and did a reading of the play “Copenhagen” with other Harvest Hill residents at the First Congregational Church in Vermont where he is a member.
Dr. Hughes combined his love of pediatrics, theater and the arts into entertaining children reading from the “Harry Potter” book series, over Zoom to an elementary school in Vermont.
“My greatest pleasure is reading to children. I have been reading aloud to school kids for over 20 years,” Dr. Hughes said. “When I put the offer out to read books aloud at Harvest Hill the residents who said they were interested chose ‘Harry Potter,’ too. I have a pretty faithful following here, “ Dr. Hughes said.
If you are considering a new retirement lifestyle Dr. Hughes says there is so much to love about Harvest Hill from the beautiful natural surroundings to the great dining options, numerous activities, and all the live musical performances.
