From Wales to Pneumocystis and AIDS: Centuries of Serendipity

This memoir was undertaken to chronicle the personal events and thoughts of my life as a keepsake for my family and close friends. My intent was to pass on to children, grandchildren and their progeny the family heritage I had come to know and cherish, to recognize the blessings from man and God and to mention some interesting serendipitous events in my life. I discovered the beauty and awe of Wales, found a relationship to the Cherokee "Trail of Tears", succeeded in research benefiting millions of people with cancer and AIDS and accrued a cadre of colleagues and life-long friends because of one measly obscure germ called Pneumocystis (noo" mo-sis' tis) that causes fatal pneumonia. Serendipitously, my career in academic medicine and infectious diseases was determined by a young patient with tularemia (rabbit fever). The highlight of my life from birth to grave has been my dear wife and children, for which my words fall far short of adequate in descriptions.

Walter T. Hughes, Jr., M.D. is a physician-scientist of Welsh descent born on a farm in southeast Tennessee in 1930. Educated in public schools through medical school and residency he began his career at the Walter Reed Army Biological Warfare Research Unit in 1956 at Ft. Detrick, MD. Aside from two years of private practice in Pediatrics, his entire career was spent in academic medicine. From Wales to Pneumocystis and AIDS tells how he achieved positions of Eudowood Professor of Pediatrics and Director, Division of Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Professor of Pediatrics, University of Louisville School of Medicine; Professor of Pediatrics, University of Tennessee College of Medicine; Arthur Ashe Chair for Pediatric Aids Research; Chairman, Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; and, the publication of more than 500 scientific articles. Novels written after retirement include The Yellow Martyrs (2000), The Last Leaf (2003), Ghosts of Misery Island (2006) and Suffer the Little Children (2011).