| Transcript: | On his own emotional commitment:
I have a strong emotional commitment to it. As a resident in training at UC-San Francisco in the late ’70s, early ’80s - I saw my first HIV infected patient in ’79 – the disease wasn't described until ’81. Our ability to diagnose it didn't occur until 1984 in terms of an antibody test. Up until 1984, we were looking at people come in with what we perceived as a viral infection that would consume them and they'd get an opportunistic infection, and 100 percent of them would die. These were young people, were well educated for a number of reasons in the Bay area, and it was a very difficult time. I had hundreds of patients. I had over 600 patients who were my patients, who died from the infection in that 1981 to 1989 period. We started the first AIDS outpatient clinic and the first inpatient ward in San Francisco. New York and Los Angeles did the same thing. But my energy to get up and do it again every day is directly related to those 600 patients that I had lost. Having to talk to their parents and their partners about why so-and-so is dying. So this was a very disorienting moment professionally for all of us. |
