Sensing Light

“A POWERFUL WORK OF FICTION THAT AUTHENTICALLY EVOKES THE BAD AND THE GOOD.”―Eric Goosby, MD, US Global AIDS Coordinator, 2009–13

“A MOVING STORY OF DOCTORS NAVIGATING THE INTERSECTIONS OF SUFFERING, AMBITION AND DISCOVERY.”―Krista Bremer, My Accidental Jihad

This breakout book by Mark A. Jacobson, a leading Bay Area HIV/AIDS physician, follows three people from vastly different backgrounds, who are thrown together by a shared urgency to find out what is killing so many men in the prime of their lives. Kevin, a gay medical resident from working class Boston, has moved to San Francisco in search of acceptance of his sexual identity. Herb, a middle-aged supervising physician at one of the nation’s toughest hospitals, struggles with his own emotional rigidity. And Gwen, a divorced mother raising a teen daughter, is seeking a sense of self and security while endeavoring to complete her medical training. Mark A. Jacobson, a professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco and attending physician at San Francisco General Hospital, began his internship in 1981, just days after the CDC first reported a mysterious, fatal disease affecting gay men.

Mark A. Jacobson is a professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco and an attending physician at San Francisco General Hospital. He began his internship days after the CDC reported a mysterious, fatal form of immunodeficiency in five gay men and soon after was assigned responsibility for critically ill patients with this syndrome.