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| The National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland |
The Phantom recalls this story quite clearly. The trouble is, he cannot recall exactly who told it to him. He thinks it was Tony Fauci's long time secretary.
One day, in the 1980's Dr. Fauci walked toward the door of his office building at The National Institutes of Health, Building 31, one of the tallest and most imposing buildings on campus, and home to the heads of many of the various Institutes which comprise NIH. He walked past a line of picketers and stared at them in surprise and took the elevator up to his office.
"Who are those people downstairs?" he asked his secretary. "And what are they picketing the NIH for?"
"Why," said the secretary, "They are picketing you, Dr. Fauci."
"Me!?!" Fauci could not believe it. "Why would they picket me?"
"They don't think enough is being done by the government for AIDS patients."
"Would you be kind enough to go down and bring those people up here?" Fauci asked her.
Fauci scurried around the office and got a conference room ready and when all the protesters had come into the room, he had them sit down and then he sat down and asked them what the complaint was.
Now, these protesters did not expect to be invited up to the director's office, much less to be meeting with Dr. Fauci, but, after an awkward silence one found his feet and said, "We are the folks who get AIDS. Some have it. Some will. And we are just queers and drug addicts and Congress doesn't care about us. Nobody cares if we live or die."
Fauci listened and gathered his thoughts, and then spoke, "Well, this comes as a great surprise to me."
Then he stood up and pointed out the window of the conference room, up the street to a massive red brick building and said, "That's the Clinical Center," he told the group.
"And in that center is a 40 bed intensive care unit, and there are three shifts of nurses working there, taking care of the patients, almost all with AIDS, 24 hours a day.
I'm told not a single nurse has yet missed a shift.
And they all know the risks they are taking.
The doctors, too. And the technicians.
And two floors above them are the laboratories with people working pretty damn hard on figuring out what kind of virus this is, causing this disease, how to test for it and how to cure it."
Then he looked around and said, "I'm happy to take you over there and show you around. If you still think nobody cares, well, come back and talk to me again."
Nobody said anything.
Finally, somebody stood up and said, "Thank you, Dr. Fauci."
And the whole group filed out.
Phantom,
ReplyDeleteAnother great story illustrating why Dr Fauci is such a competent leader during this crisis- he's not cowered by opposition. Whether it's AID's activists protesting against him and his agency years ago, or dealing with the bully in the Oval Office today, Fauci is confident enough in his own positions to withstand disagreement. While Pence lamely reiterates the same thing day after day while paying homage to "the President " in every other sentence and poor Dr Birk appears to have aged 20 years in two weeks, Dr Fauci arrives to the the briefings with the same energy and fortitude he's exhibited his whole career. Unlike the rest of the task force- Faci refuses to kowtow to Trump. He skillfully contradicts the idiot when necessary and amazingly can keep a straight face, except for one delightful exception, whenever Trump veers off the rails...Fauci is a man on a mission and he won't be deterred- the right man for the time. It's a role, as your story demonstrates, he's prepared for his whole life.
Maud
I've spoken with him maybe half a dozen times in my life and cannot claim to "know" him, but on each occasion, I had the sense he regarded me as a worthwhile human being and he listened to me, made eye contact and was not playing a role, but simply having a real conversation about something that interested him.
ReplyDeleteI gather he is politically conservative and believes he is a self made man who rose on his own talents, with all that implies.
But I could not imagines a better man for the moment.
Grant, (who was 5'8") introduced Phil Sheridan (5'6") to Lincoln (6'2") as the general who Grant entrusted with clearing out the Shenandoah Valley and ultimately chasing down Lee outside Appomattox. Lincoln looked after Sheridan, walking away and said, "He's a very small man to shoulder such an enormous responsibility."
Grant smiled and said, "I think you will find, when the battle begins, he will be large enough for the purpose."
Same for Dr. Fauci
Phantom,
ReplyDeleteA line you've often quoted springs to mind-"It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog"
Maud