A public art piece to honor the caretakers of people with HIV and AIDS is under construction in Washington D.C.’s Dupont Circle Metro station. An excerpt from Walt Whitman’s “The Dresser”—a poem about tending to wounded soldiers—is being engraved in one of the station’s granite walls. The project was the idea of D.C. Council member Jim Graham, who was executive director of the city’s Whitman-Walker Clinic, an organization that works to provide health and community services to HIV positive people.
Beth Benne, RN, is HIV negative, but
the virus has impacted her life. She currently supervises a biannual HIV/AIDS awareness week as
the director of the student health center at Pierce College, a
community commuter school in Woodland Hills, California.
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Overheard in the Women's Forum
"I recently met a guy who is negative. I did tell him about my status and he decided to kiss me anyway (we didn't go further than that). But a day later, he called and said that he actually had a mouth ulcer that time when we kissed and he was very worried. Asked if he can get the virus from me that way. For that moment, I felt so insulted and yet I felt so bad. It was my first time having a contact with a "negative" guy."
