Abraham Verghese

The author and a doctor specializing in infectious diseases who arrives at the Johnson City Medical Center soon after the first case of AIDS had been treated there. Abraham is from Africa, studied in India, and arrived in the United States in 1980 as a "rookie doctor." While he knows there are some aspects of medicine that are more glamorous and some doctors that earn more money, he enters into the field of infectious diseases. One of his motivations is that there is little competition for the positions in this field. While he doesn't realize it at the time, he and other specialists of this field will become in high demand as the AIDS epidemic becomes a major problem. Abraham begins to study up on AIDS but from his new home in Tennessee, sees no cases.

After some time, the brother of a nurse in another small hospital...