Tell Me I'm Okay

A Doctor's Story

By David Bradford

‘Throughout my years of practice, people have often asked me why I decided to specialise in sexual health. The question is not surprising given that sexual health doctors are not held in the same regard as those who work in other medical specialties ... We sexual health physicians don’t grow rich, but we have a wealth of stories – wry, funny, and sad – all illustrative of the human condition.’

‘A remarkable Australian story, and one that should be read widely.’ Dennis Altman

‘Honest, humane and at times deeply moving.’ The Hon Neal Blewett AC, Federal Minister for Health and Minister for Community Services and Health, 1983–1990

In Tell Me I’m Okay, author and retired sexual health doctor David Bradford relates a remarkable set of stories ... about growing up as a gay child in a strongly Christian family, struggling with his sexuality, serving as an army doctor in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, working as Director of the Melbourne Communicable Diseases Centre at the time of the arrival of HIV/AIDS, and in private practice with hundreds of AIDS patients, many of whom did not survive. 

Here is a humane, wise, thoughtful voice, always conscious of the wonderful, the absurd, the fragile nature of life. David Bradford’s story tells us much about who we are, how we’ve changed, and where some at least of our scars have come from.

About this book