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Julieta (Julia) Giner Oral History Interview, 2024

Julieta (Julia) Giner, a nurse, was born in Bonn, Germany, to a German mother and a Spanish father. Her family immigrated to the United States when she was an infant. Being from an immigrant family, Giner understood that life can be challenging, and this understanding motivated her to work against the unfair stigma against HIV/AIDS patients. When one of her good friends became gravely ill because of AIDS in 1989, Giner knew she wanted to be involved in the development of treatment for HIV/AIDS. Giner started working at Duke Hospital in 1993, initially as a floor nurse in the general medicine. At the time, some of the patients in her ward had opportunistic infections due to AIDS, but wanting to be more closely involved in HIV/AIDS work, she spoke to Dr. John A. Bartlett, the physician running the public care clinic for HIV/AIDS patients. In 1996, Bartlett invited her to apply to become a clinical research nurse in that adult infectious disease clinic, where she worked until 2009. From 2005 to 2009, she worked with Bartlett in Moshi, Tanzania, at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre. When she returned to Durham, North Carolina, she worked in a general pediatric infectious disease clinic, where she was still able to see HIV/AIDS patients until she retired in 2020. This collection contains 1 oral history interview conducted on February 5, 2024 by Anthony Zhao as part of the Bass Connections Agents of Change Oral History Project. In the interview, Giner discusses her early friendships within the LGBTQ community; taking care of a good friend with AIDS; her work taking care of HIV/AIDS patients at Duke Hospital; her extensive involvement with the community advisory board; her successes and failures with health education about HIV in Durham, North Carolina; and the unique bond within the clinic staff. The themes of this interview include LGBTQ issues, societal stigmatization, community activism, health education, and advocacy.
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Interview, February 5, 2024

This oral history interview was conducted with Julieta (Julia) Giner on February 5, 2024 by Anthony Zhao as part of the Bass Connections Agents of Change Oral History Project.

Duration: 01:28:00 (stereo)

Duration: 01:27:52 (mono)

During the interview, Giner discusses growing up in Massachusetts in an immigrant family; her family background and traveling to Europe in her youth; path to working as a nurse at Duke; her early friendships within the LGBTQ community; taking care of a good friend with AIDS, so he would not die alone; working as an STD/STI health educator at a community health organization in Boston, Massachusetts; sad and consuming nature of early work with HIV/AIDS patients; family and friends reactions to working with HIV/AIDS; her work taking care of HIV/AIDS patients at Duke Hospital and finding work at Dr. John A. Bartlett's clinic at Duke; the reputation of Bartlett's clinic within the Duke University Health System (DUHS); the lack of education about HIV/AIDS; her extensive involvement with the Community Advisory Board (CAB) including the formation of CAB, the role of CAB and the impact of their work, changing demographics of CAB that matched the changes in HIV/AIDS demographics, the relationship between CAB, clinical researchers, and principal investigators, and the empowering role of CAB for previously silenced people in the community; her successes and failures with health education about HIV in Durham, North Carolina; the unique bond within the clinic staff; seeing the many layers of stigma of HIV/AIDS; working within and advocating on behalf of communities she was not a part of; her relationship with John and Patricia Bartlett and the team dynamic within the clinic; memorable moments providing care to patients; and her final thoughts highlighting the work of all others in the clinic. The themes of this interview include LGBTQ issues, societal stigmatization, community activism, health education, and advocacy.

Digital files include interview metadata and transcript (DOCX), interview with stereo (WAV), interview with mono (MP3), consent form (PDF), an image (JPG), and TXT files.