Living with a Death Sentence

Despite how The Australian has been lambasting Monash's new medical course over the last 2 weeks, there r still aspects of the course which others can't match up to. Once such facet is our fortnightly stakeholder tutorials, where a member(s) of the public come in to give us a talk about something, be it asbestos-induced lung cancer, recounting a gang rape, discussing abortions, and most recently, HIV.

In our stakeholder tutorial today, 3 HIV positive people came in to talk to us about living with the disease, how they were infected, and the treatment they are currently undergoing. 2 of them were gay men while the third was a heterosexual lady who had been infected by her ex-boyfriend.

The whole talk was so poignant, that it radically changed my view of HIV positive people. I admit that previously, in some shadowed region of my consciousness, I discriminated against such people, albeit not outwardly. Something in me always went 'Bleah...I'd never get it, why should I care?' I've since learnt that this is the acme of complacency. That lady who spoke to us NEVER went out to get HIV, nor did she ever dream of getting it. Life bit her in the butt somehow.

Its not fair.