Bolan, Robert

Biography

Robert K. Bolan was born in Detroit, Michigan and grew up in the greater Detroit area. He graduated from the University of Detroit in 1964 and then went on to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, for medical school. He received his M.D. in 1968. He was briefly married during medical school (2.5 years) and has a son. He started his residency in Madison, Wisconsin (1972/1973) [where he met his first lover and came out to himself]. There was an active gay network in Madison. After a short break from medicine he completed his residency (1975/1976) in Milwaukee. While in Milwaukee he became aware of the "STD problem with gay men" and began volunteering at a gay VD clinic. This was the beginning of the gay medical movement and he enjoyed working with and serving his peers. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) had become concerned about the high and growing rates of Syphilis and Hepatitis B within the gay male community and, in a rare move, partnered with these community clinics. This started Bolan's association with the CDC. Bolan joined the National Coalition of Gay Sexually Transmitted Disease Services (NCGSTD) after being introduced to the group by its chairperson Mark Behar. The NCGSTD issued the first "safe sex" pamphlet, Guidelines and Recommendations for Healthy Gay Sexual Activity . Started in 1979, it was published in 1981, just as physicians were becoming aware of the illnesses that would later be called AIDS.

In 1979 Bolan left his practice in Hartland, Wisconsin and moved to San Francisco to fulfill his dream of being able to combine his interest in family practice medicine and gay VD into a single practice. One of his first moves on arrival in San Francisco was to contact the two year old organization, Bay Area Physicians for Human Rights (BAPHR), a landmark gay physicians group. In 1980, at the 3rd Annual National Gay and Lesbian Health Organization Conference, Bolan organized a related sub-conference, the 2nd meeting of the NCGSTD, "Current Aspects of STDS II". The following year at the June 1981 BAPHR Conference, Alvin Friedman-Kien, who was added to the schedule at the last moment, reported on the strange outbreak of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) in young gay men in New York. Thirteen days previously the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) first reported on incidence of pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) among gay men. The MMWR did not report on KS until July 3, 1981. Bolan had already heard of the PCP cases at the CDC STD meeting held in San Diego in May. Soon the incidences of KS and PCP became linked under the short-lived acronym GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency) before being classified as AIDS.

BAPHR served a dual purpose; it was both a support group "safe haven" for gay physicians and a gay medical organization. Bolan was outspoken about medical issues, especially STDs and the growing concern, speculation, and research on AIDS. He became BAPHR's spokesman on the subject and a self-described "Media Queen" before burning out on publicity. He became known to Marcus Conant through Conant's KP Discussion Group, which Bolan attended when he could. Conant saw Bolan as a link between the academics and the private practice physicians, though Bolan never thought of himself that way. He served on BAPHR's KS Task Force from 1981-1983 and became the president-elect of BAPHR in 1983. The same year Conant asked him to become the Chair of the KS Foundation (formed in April 1982). Bolan took over the KS Foundation (shortly to be renamed the AIDS Foundation) in June 1983. He was also running a private practice, keeping up on research, being a media spokesman and maintaining a relationship. Something had to go. He resigned as President-elect of BAPHR and cut back on his media role. Bolan served as chair of the AIDS Foundation until January 1986. After a long practice in the Bay Area, Bolan moved to the Los Angeles area to serve as Associate Professor of Clinical Family Medicine and Director of HIV Services at the University of Southern California. However, shortly after moving south Bolan was also asked to serve as Medical Director at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Services Center, which has one of the largest HIV Clinics in Southern California.

Bolan was actively involved with the discussions about and research on this new disease and its possible causes. Before the discovery of HIV virus one of the main theories was immune overload caused by repeated STD infections and perhaps enhanced by the use of inhaled amyl nitrates or "poppers". After the first blood transfusion cases had been identified it became clear to Bolan and others that AIDS was caused by a new type of virus. Most AIDS/HIV research, especially in the early years, was done in the "laboratory in the field", by physicians referring patients to drug trials, and their own attention to the things that didn't fit. Bolan found the uncertain and constantly evolving aspect of HIV disease as intellectually stimulating, which is why he didn't burn out like many others did. The final question, in Sally Smith Hughes' oral history interview with Bolan, concerned what Bolan saw as his greatest contribution to HIV. His answer was:

Persistence. Showing up. And an attempt to approach this disease from a multifaceted approach: from an educational approach, from a social activism approach, and community organizational approach, and finally from a medical approach.

From the guide to the Robert K. Bolan papers, 1967-1989, (Bulk 1982-1985), (University of California, San Francisco. Library. Archives and Special Collections.)