Pat Whelehan wears many hats.

On the SUNY Potsdam campus, she is a medical anthropologist who is constantly researching and writing the preeminent texts on the social construction of disease and illness. She is a certified sex therapist who teaches courses on human sexuality and keeps her door open to students in need of counseling. And she is the campus AIDS education coordinator who works with individuals before and after they are tested for HIV.

To Whelehan, there is a natural progression for a medical anthro-pologist to become interested in sex therapy—especially when assigned human sexuality courses—and equally as easy to see how sexuality would lead to educating students about AIDS. That’s life on campus.

But it was a chance encounter in her personal life that initially got her interested in AIDS advocacy. Her dealings with an artist diagnosed with AIDS—long before the medical community identified the HIV virus—made it clear that there is a growing need to educate the larger community about the disease.

Her various jobs have fed her desire to help others, and to be accessible to people in crisis.

Whelehan works with the Global Health Council and AIDS Community Services, for which she has coordinated community-based events such as guest lectures by AIDS-infected individuals, candlelight memorials for AIDS victims, and various events for World AIDS Day.

Getting students to share her commitment seemed the natural thing to do.

Together they participate in the “Toothbrushes for Malawi” program through the University of North Carolina’s School of Dentistry at Chapel Hill. It is estimated that 30 percent of the population of the sub-Saharan African country is infected with AIDS. Sharing a toothbrush is one way for HIV to be transmitted.

“I grew up with the idea that knowledge is to be given away,” Whelehan said. “I am training the students to go out and share what they’ve learned. It has a ripple effect.”

Whelehan dons yet another hat as a volunteer for Reachout, St. Lawrence County’s only crisis hotline and referral service. In addition to calls about possible AIDS infection, she has answered questions dealing with suicide, marital issues and physical abuse, among others.

“Reachout is an ongoing role; it’s back and forth,” said Whelehan, who admits she gets as much as she gives from helping others.

— Karen L. Mattison