The following is an interview of Laurie’s 89-year-old father, Sherwin. He was the Chairman of Infectious Diseases at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, practicing during the 1980s and 90s. ‘He is of failing health and our time together has mostly been dealing with medical issues,’ says Laurie. ‘So to sit with him and hear his stories and perspectives has been a true blessing for both of us.’
My name is Sherwin, I was an Infectious Disease physician at Michael Reese Hospital and have been asked to share some of my experiences in the earlier years of the AIDS epidemic.
I remember vividly the first patient I treated that ultimately turned out to have HIV. We were asked to see a patient who had returned from Haiti who developed a high fever. We worked him up and had what we expected to find, Tuberculosis. We treated him for Tuberculosis but he didn’t get better. We noticed he had additional changes in his x-rays, did a biopsy and found out he had Pneumocystis Carinii, and we treated him for that but he did not improve.
At the time, we had no idea that we were seeing the beginning of HIV and it wasn’t initially part of our differential.
In those early years, I remember being at the bedside of many times desperately ill patients with nothing to offer and how horribly frustrating that experience was.
As we learned more, my department became active in setting up walks for raising funds for research. There were no treatments in the beginning but we organized, set up and recruited funds to help support research for AIDS and for the Ryan White program. It was rewarding to watch over the years as we had more and more to offer and see patients begin to live near normal and eventually normal lives.
