Plague Years: A Doctor's Journey through the AIDS Crisis

In 1992, Dr. Ross A. Slotten signed more death certificates in Chicago than any other physician, and likely more than anyone else in Illinois. As a family physician trained to care for patients across their lifespans, he completed his residency in 1984 unaware that many of his future patients would die in their prime. Among them were friends, colleagues, and lovers—gay men with HIV who faced rejection from much of the medical community. Though not an infectious disease specialist, Slotten's dual identity as a gay man and young physician positioned him as an unlikely pioneer during one of modern history's worst epidemics. Plague Years presents a first-person account of the AIDS crisis spanning Chicago and four continents. Drawing on more than thirty years of personal notebooks, Slotten offers an intimate and comprehensive view of the disease's spread alongside portraits of his patients and his own conflicted experiences as a medical professional. By documenting someone who was simultaneously doctor and potential patient, the memoir illuminates the darkest period in LGBT community history in ways previous medical memoirs have not.