Summary: As a medical student in the 1980s, Carl Fichtenbaum saw his first patient who was suffering from an unknown illness that would later be known as HIV/AIDS. Carl didn’t know it then, but he would eventually become an infectious diseases physician specializing in HIV/AIDS research. On episode 48, the professor of medicine at University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine shares the history the AIDS crisis and what it was like to take care of deathly ill patients at a time when many health care providers refused to even enter their hospital rooms. In the early years, 90 percent of Carl’s patients died as doctors struggled to find long-term management solutions. Carl reminds us that staying hopeful when things seem bleak means remembering that our past failures have taught us just as much as our successes.
