This week, I was asked to speak at the AtlantiCare World AIDS Day Remembrance Ceremony. I’ve written about World AIDS Day before, as an illustration of teamwork in healthcare and as an example of attending to grief. I think what I like best about World AIDS Day is that it acknowledges that professional caregivers are affected by loss, too.

In my first years in the HIV clinic, in the late 90s, the clinic staff would sit in a circle and light a candle (open flames were still allowed back then), and we would read the names of all the patients we had lost that year. Back then, it wasn’t unusual to lose twenty or more patients in a year.

I pushed my grief away, denied its presence for a long time. When I finally acknowledged it, I was able to process it with breathwork, with bodywork, and of course, with writing. One of the things I resolved to do in my presentation this year was to use both of my professional roles, both as a clinician and as a creative writer.

I recently received an email from the Director of the Writing and Humanities Program at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. They are putting together an anthology of poems, stories, and essays about the hidden face of professional grief, and they are requesting submissions. As a resource, they offered this article for more information. I will be submitting some of my therapeutic writing to this anthology.

Then and Now

Because I’ve been taking care of HIV patients in Atlantic City for over 25 years, I find myself contrasting then and now. Twenty-five years ago, the theme of World AIDS Day could not have been elimination. The US Government has outlined strategies to decrease the number of new HIV cases by 240,000 people by the year 2030.

Back then, we just didn’t have the tools and the resources that we have now. AIDS used to be a disease of youth, of hospitalization, of fatality. Now it’s a chronic illness encompassing all age groups, many of whom still survive after being diagnosed in the late 80s and early 90s before we had effective treatments and viral loads to assess the effectiveness.

Hope and Light

My point is that things are better for HIV patients, and yet there are still very human barriers to eliminating HIV. Many of my patients are tired of taking pills that remind them every day that they have HIV. I tell them that new long-acting injectable medicines are in the pipeline. Our technology keeps evolving to meet our needs. Their eyes brighten when I say that.

I like the fact that World AIDS Day falls in this dark season of the year when the days are short. It’s a season for introspection and for hymns in a minor key. It’s always good to have a reminder that after a long darkness, there is hope and there is light.

Question: If you are a healthcare provider or first responder or if you work in an area with heavy losses, balancing work roles with grieving may be a difficult balance. Do you feel a tension between professionalism and authenticity? If so, leave a comment below and let me know.