Awards of Courage
Howard Grossman, M.D.
Honoring with Pride 2005 Honoree
Howard Grossman is a board-certified internist, a widely recognized specialist in HIV medicine, and executive director of the American Academy of HIV Medicine, an organization of more than 2,000 front-line HIV-care providers dedicated to advancing excellence in HIV care. He is nationally known as an educator on HIV issues and as an advocate for gay and lesbian civil rights and the rights of people with HIV.
In the early 1980s, Dr. Grossman encountered some of the first cases of AIDS when he was a resident at Kings County Hospital, one of the largest public hospitals in Brooklyn.
He worked at the first dedicated AIDS unit in the country at St. Clare’s Hospital, and entered private practice in 1987. Today, he has one of the largest HIV practices in New York and serves a diverse patient population. He is also an associate attending physician at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan and an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Dr. Grossman’s involvement with people affected by HIV led him to become one of the plaintiffs in the landmark suit Vacco v. Quill, et al., which sought to overturn laws preventing terminally ill patients from obtaining their physicians’ help to end their own lives. The case was decided in 1997, with the Supreme Court finding no constitutional guarantee of the “right to die” but leaving the door open for states to experiment with various options.
In addition to his work as a physician and an advocate, Dr. Grossman has written articles for many publications and web sites, and has served as medical editor for columns in POZ, amfAR’s Treatment Insider, and others.
Dr. Grossman is involved with many community-based organizations, including: the New York Chapter of Compassion in Dying (board of directors); Gay Men’s Health Crisis (board of directors); Love Heals/The Allison Gertz Foundation (honorary board of directors); Visual AIDS (board of directors); ACT-Up; the AIDS Treatment Activists’ Coalition; the Coalition for Salvage Therapy; the Organization of HIV Healthcare Providers; the People with AIDS Health Group; and TAG.
Dr. Grossman has served as president of New York Physicians for Human Rights, as a board member of the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights from 1989 to 1995, and as a member of the New York County Medical Society AIDS Task Force since 1991. He was also on the board of the American Academy of HIV Medicine from its founding in 2000 until he took over as executive director.