PAST WORK

RADIO

On wearing a t-shirt that says, “HIV-positive”. Sipho Mthathi, of the Treatment Action Campaign, explains: “As human beings, we have rights. And if we don’t fight for those rights, what does our existence mean?”

Recording audio at a Treatment Action Campaign national meeting in Durban, South Africa, 2003.

I grew up riding in the back of pickup trucks which was, obviously, completely fun. And also, obviously should be outlawed.

But there is a third way.

We were at a boxing match in the township of Khayelitsha. It was Nelson Mandela’s birthday. And one thing I knew as an American? We were definitely going to be on television.

My grandfather, my father, and I boycotted ZIP codes. We believed in something—something I found again in medical school.

Before Obamacare, things were bleak. I blamed doctors the most.

The buildings are dull, to reassure us: really, this is all normal. And incredibly, it is.

Full list of radio pieces, all on All Things Considered: Tests using mice. June 5, 2002. AIDS work. July 10, 2002. Mr. Lee. July 23, 2002. Scientific mice. September 18, 2002. Foreign scientists. October 8, 2002. The rules. October 28, 2002. The white coat ceremony. November 29, 2002. Medical trial recruitment. February 24, 2003. Learning to interview. April 17, 2003. Healer's Art. May 15, 2003. Anatomy. July 9, 2003. Small talk. July 14, 2003. 50 percent. July 29, 2003. Doctors. September 29, 2003. Boxing in Africa. October 20, 2003. South African AIDS crisis sparks activism. November 20, 2003. Changing how you see the world. December 3, 2003. A 20 year plan to fight AIDS. December 20, 2003. A med student’s memory. January 9, 2004. Journal clubs. January 21, 2004. 10 Lessons at the ICU. March 24, 2004. Heat shock proteins. April 8, 2004. Studying sickness. June 8, 2004. Joe Wright’s trip to Spain. July 2, 2004. “Gunners” blasting their fellow medical students. August 6, 2004. Growing up in the back of pickup trucks. September 24, 2004. Questioning a doctor’s practical magic. November 17, 2004. Hospital’s drab appearances belie the drama within. November 23, 2004. Male doctor fashion may be evolving away from ties. December 10, 2004. A view of medical costs from a veterinary perspective. January 31, 2005. “Pimp My Ride”: the ultimate body shop for hospitals. February 7, 2005. HIV scare: making use of fear. February 18, 2005. Assigning blame for America’s insurance woes. March 21, 2005. Pre-surgery safety checks: redundant or reassuring? May 4, 2005. Medical school, in and out of the anatomy lab. November 15, 2005. On the romance of a doctor’s endless hours. November 29, 2005. Remembering the early days of “Gay Cancer”. May 8, 2006. Overshooting Obama’s health. March 4, 2010.

ACADEMIA

Wright J. Only your calamity: the beginnings of activism by and for people with AIDS. Am J Public Health. 2013 Oct;103(10):1788-98. LINK TO PDF

INTERVIEWED

Boston.com, October 1 2020. Doctor providing addiction care to homeless shares what is needed to address impacts of opioid crisis on Boston’s neighborhoods. “When we’re saying, ‘Let’s have you recover and have a vision of hope and future,’ and what you’re left with is staying awake in your shelter bed, acutely conscious of every past trauma you’ve ever experienced and just holding on with white knuckles to your desire to not use drugs today — that’s a pretty difficult setting in which to accomplish that.”

AMERSA Talks podcast. April 10, 2025. Episode: Learning From Hamsterdams: Zoning, Real Estate, and Drug Containment Zones. “There are some health services that you can create by being able to find everybody in one space. But that space is difficult. It’s chaotic in many ways. I think it cements and reinforces that stigma that’s being played out in a spatial way. The city begins thinking of that space, in the collective mental map of the city, as a place and a set of people worthy of stigmatization, no matter what our good intentions are within the zone.”