ABSTRACT
I was hired to develop and then run an outpatient psychotherapy program at St. Clare's Hospital in New York City. It specialized in the treatment of disenfranchised persons with HIV and AIDS. My first days at work were difficult. Patients crowded the dusty waiting room, leaning listlessly into the blue plastic chairs screwed to the floor. Soap operas blared on a large television suspended from the ceiling. When I asked for my patient schedule, the receptionist bellowed out into the waiting room, “Hey, does anyone out there want to see a psychologist?” Multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis was rampant. An HIV-negative physician had just died from it.
