Dr. Peter Jepson-Young, seen here graduating from medical school in 1985, received a posthumous award from the UBC Medical Alumni Association for his work with those suffering from HIV/AIDS — a disease that eventually claimed his own life.

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NEWS: ‘Dr. Peter’ receives posthumous award

Last Saturday (May 8), Bob and Shirley Young accepted the UBC Medical Alumni Association’s distinguished Silver Anniversary Award on behalf of their son, Dr. Peter Jepson-Young, the namesake of the West End’s HIV/AIDS care facility, Dr. Peter Centre.

Known to most as “Dr. Peter,” Jepson-Young passed away in 1992, at age 35, after battling the AIDS virus for seven years. At the time, he was B.C.’s longest-surviving AIDS patient. The final years of his life were documented through The Dr. Peter Diaries, a weekly three-minute segment on CBC Television’s evening news that followed him through the struggle with his illness. The groundbreaking series put a human face to AIDS, which at the time was still widely misperceived as a mysterious virus that only afflicted the gay male community. The UBC Medical Alumni Association award coincides with the 20th anniversary of the series.

On the phone from her home in North Vancouver, Shirley Jepson-Young recalls the fear she felt when her son told her about the CBC series, which debuted in 1990. “When he told us that he was going to go on television, tell viewers that he was gay, that he had AIDS, and that he was [going] blind [because of the disease] — oh, we hit the roof,” she says. “We said, ‘You can’t do that. You live alone, you have a distinctive name, you might become the victim of a gay bashing. This is just too risky.’

“And he just said, ‘If it helps one person, it’s worth the risk.’’”

At the time, there was such negative stigma around AIDS that patients, even those in hospital, were practically quarantined. “You had to scrub up and [put on a] gown to go in [Peter’s] room; the food was left on trays with disposable plastic dishes outside the doors,” Shirley says of her son’s month-long stay at St. Paul’s Hospital in fall 1986. “At St. Paul’s, I would venture to say that 90 per cent of the patients with AIDS had no one visit them. Families really, really stepped aside. They were frightened — they were frightened of being infected, they were frightened of the stigma and what it would do to their loved one and to their family... It was like a modern-day leprosy in those days.”

Despite the odds, The Dr. Peter Diaries was a hit. Beginning as a one-off feature, it became a weekly series for two years as a result of viewer interest. It also led to Shirley and Bob receiving unexpectedly heartfelt support from friends and neighbours. “For 1990, that was really huge,” she says. She didn’t expect people to understand her son’s condition, and was surprised by the outpouring of sympathy, particularly from her peers. “When you think of our age group, it was really, really incredible.”

Now in their late seventies, Shirley and Bob’s acceptance of the award is the latest in a long line of distinctions that have honoured their late son’s life and work: the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation was established prior to his death; in 1997, the Dr. Peter Centre began operating out of St. Paul’s Hospital; and, in 2001, the Centre established its permanent home on Comox Street, where it offers daytime health-care programs as well as an around-the-clock residence.

“Men will often say, ‘I was so homophobic before I saw your son on TV.’ Those are really important things to hear, 18 years after Peter’s passed away,” Shirley says. “I think we, as human beings, try to help someone who’s struggling. By sharing your own story, you’re making theirs a little easier. It really opens you to so much love.”