Nurses On The Inside: Valery Hughes, M.D. Shares Stories of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in NYC

Kate Frost: From a Nursing perspective this book documents NYC’s outbreak of HIV/AIDS. It is written as we chart, descriptive and pertinent. True hero’s not unlike those on the frontline of COVID. Only AIDS had so much more stigma. The lives lost, a Holocaust. I miss friends I had as a teen. I think I became a nurse because of what I saw in the late 80’s early 90’s. My friends died one by one. I was told if I volunteered to rock the babies with AIDS I would be kicked out of my house. If it gives you an idea of how it was in the early 00’s I received a full blown AIDS patient on our unit. The sweet lady had been living with a friend and knew she was dying. Her husband died in 1989 and was brought out of the house with people in full haz mat gear mask, googles, gowns…She didn’t want her friend or her daughter to see that. I hugged her and she cried well we both did. She was transferred to Omega House ( an AIDS hospice ). Great book. I definitely recommend it. Remember HIV/AIDS is still around the science around it is better. Be safe everyone

United States on Sep 21, 2023

Scott J Pearson: Much has changed since HIV/AIDS first started spreading widely in America. Fortunately, we now have better drugs to treat HIV infections. The healthcare system focuses on prevention through PrEP. America is more accepting of homosexuality, though more progress can always be made. Some things remain similar, though. Preventative vaccines are still a hoped-for but not realized dream. The stigma of a diagnosis still exists, but not nearly as badly as it did in the 1980s (when even President Reagan could not utter the word AIDS).

Forty years later, our challenge becomes not to forget the agony some faced during this epidemic. Even in communities most affected by HIV/AIDS, the topic can be viewed as a relic of the past instead of a live issue for the present. As Faulkner reminds us, the past is never really past, and we benefit from understanding its hardships. In this book, Matzer and Hughes, who worked as nurses on the frontlines of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City, seek to chronicle and preserve some of these stories for the future.

The book starts their journeys as recent graduates of a nursing program. They continue their training while working, but they set...

United States on Nov 25, 2022

JD: While the book is interesting telling the story of the HIV epidemic from the nurses POV it is really badly edited with typos and name errors littered throughout. It doesn't flow very well and the chapters set in the now are a bit cringe and add little

United Kingdom on Jul 29, 2022

Kindle Customer: Aids care told from the perspective of the nurses who did actually care about their patients. For all that covid has killed aids is a far bigger problem that could yet come back to bite us unless we sit up and take notice. Hard to do with the current lockdowns and deaths I think 🤔 this was shocking to read considering it was only a couple of years ago that it was the big news. The world possibly lost some excellent people to this disease and it isn't over yet! BTW you will need the tissues

United Kingdom on Jan 09, 2022

Amazon Customer: A heartbreaking but necessary read. The compassion of these nurses come out in the pages of this book. It's hard to imagine a time when my community had to suffer through this, but reading this book it is evident that there were people who cared. I like the medical side of it too, and how they explained this. This is a must read if you are interested in this period of our collective history.

United Kingdom on Jul 27, 2021

Joel Wilkins: This is such an important book, on par with David France’s How to Survive a Plague.
Written by two nurses who worked on the front line for a number of years dealing first hand with AIDS patients. The commitment, professionalism and kindness they showed these patients over the years goes a long way to show how hard some work in the healthcare service, often under such demanding and upsetting conditions.
The AIDS epidemic can never be allowed to happen again but during this current covid pandemic, we can never take our health and life for granted.
Thank you to these two inspiring nurses for sharing their stories.

United Kingdom on Jul 01, 2020

Rakhee: Full disclosure: I worked with Ellen at Lenox Hill Hospital when both of us were Nurse Managers. It is difficult for me to separate my opinion of this book from my opinion of Ellen and her work on 8 East. Both are extraordinary. I started at Lenox Hill, fresh out of Nursing School in 1983. My 1st assignment was 4 East, the Male Medical Service floor. My patients were poor, or addicts, or alcoholics, or homeless, usually a combination. And AIDS patients. Ours was an "unofficial" AIDS unit. No other unit wanted them. We didn't know much more in "83 than when Ellen and Valery started. All we knew was we had a lot of mostly very young, Gay men dying, with very little we could do. There was fear-doctors who wouldn't go into the rooms. Interns who would get calls from girlfriends or wives," If you keep taking care of those people, don't bother coming home." Colleagues who would say some version of ,"They deserve this." Some men wound up living with us because they'd been kicked out of home and job. As Ellen and Valery said, having this disease was bad enough, but the hatred, prejudice, fear and inhumanity these men faced was awful. Most of us did our best, trying to combat fear with...

United States on Feb 26, 2020

Kindle Customer: I purchased this book after reading the many heart breaking posts on the AIDS memorial on Instagram. The authors frequently post there, sharing memories of patients and care given during the early AIDS epidemic. Anyone with an interest of this time should read this book. It is sympathetically written from the view of two exceptional nurses who cared for AIDS patients. Having lost many friends to this awful disease here in the UK, it is vitally important that these brave patients are never forgotten. Valery and Ellen have made this possible with their book, which is an exceptional read. I read the book through many tears, and will think about the patients and their bravery for the rest of my days. Congratulations on a spectacular book which although emotional, is very informative and beautifully written.

United Kingdom on Jul 17, 2019