Voices in the Band: A Doctor, Her Patients, and How the Outlook on AIDS Care Changed from Doomed to Hopeful

Join Dr. Susan Clark Ball in a presentation on her decades-long work combatting the AIDS crisis and a reflection on the epidemic in the shadow of COVID-19. Voices in the Band: A Doctor, Her Patients, and How the Outlook on AIDS Care Changed from Doomed to Hopeful is a moving memoir of the fear and confusion that surrounded the disease in the early 1990s and the guarded hope that emerged at the end of the decade. Dr. Ball effectively portrays the grief and isolation felt by both the patients and those who cared for them using a sharp eye for detail and sensitivity to each patient’s story. She also recounts the friendships, humor, and camaraderie that she and her colleagues shared working together to provide the best care possible, despite repeated frustrations and setbacks. As Dr. Ball and her colleagues struggled to care for an underserved population even after game-changing medication was available, it became clear to them that medicine alone could not ensure a transition from illness to health when patients were suffering from terrible circumstances as well as a terrible disease.

About the Speaker

Dr. Susan Clark Ball serves as Assistant Director of the Glenn Bernbaum Unit at the Center for Special Studies at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. In 1992 she began her medical career taking care of patients with HIV at the Center for Special Studies, a designated AIDS care center.