A Woman to Know: Linda Laubenstein
She is incredibly important in the history of AIDS. — Larry Kramer
(image via Wikimedia Commons)
She co-authored one of the first articles exploring the causes behind the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, and her work in HIV research revolutionized treatment of the disease. Even though she spent her life in a wheelchair, paraplegic from a childhood bout with polio, she continued to meet with patients at all hours, even taking buses across town to do house calls. "She was sicker than most of her patients but didn't let it stop her," one colleague remembered.
Today, the New York State Department of Health awards a "Linda Laubenstein Honor" every year, given to doctors "distinguished by their compassionate manner and their wholehearted involvement in the ongoing effort to achieve comprehensive care for people with HIV/AIDS."
Add to your library list:
How to Survive a Plague: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS (David France)
The Normal Heart (Larry Kramer)
Read more:
Linda Laubenstein, Physician and Leader in the Detection of AIDS (The New York Times)
On the Front Lines Against the AIDS Epidemic (New York Magazine)
Patient Zero (The Chicago Tribune)
About the Linda Laubenstein Award (HIV Clinical Resource)
** Thank you to my good friend and family Charles Hicks for suggesting Linda as a woman to know <3 **
** Send your own recommendations for women to know! Reply to this newsletter with your lady and she could be featured in an upcoming edition. You can browse the archive here. **