Editor's Note: Caitlin Ryan, PhD, is in Atlanta this weekend for the Council on Social Work Education's annual conference and speaks at the very first LGBT plenary of the CSWE on Sunday, Oct. 30, from 9:45 a.m.-11 a.m. The conference is at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis and is open to the public. The hotel is located at 265 Peachtree Center Ave., Atlanta, GA 30303.
While sitting bedside of numerous gay men dying of AIDS in the 1980s while living in Atlanta, Caitlin Ryan said she was overwhelmed not only by the disease's impact on the men infected by this new virus but also the devastation to their families.
"I was sent to Atlanta in 1980 when I was a graduate student at Smith College for social work. At that period, AIDS was just starting. I worked clinical internships here and they asked me to help at AID Atlanta," Ryan said in an interview with GA Voice.