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| The Age of Aquarius was dawning in San Francisco when George "Skip"
Gay, MD '61, moved there in 1967. Tens of thousands of flower children
were pouring into Haight-Ashbury for the Summer of Love. Those who stayed
created an area famous for its drug and music culture Gay stayed, too,
and added a mix of medical expertise and philosophy to the culture at a
time when it was desperately needed.
Haight-Ashbury was shooting toward a deadly problem in the late 1960s. Marijuana and LSD were out. Speed and heroin were ii At the same time, the area's young people were alienated from the rest of society -including its medical community. They thought doctors were too judgmental, and ir those days, most physicians did have negative attitudes toward drug abusers and little knowledge about how to treat them. Gay was different, to say the least. He founded a heroin clinic and
drug detoxification unit at the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, where
he pioneered the treatment of drug abuse and volunteered as an emergency
medicine physician. He also helped create Rock Medicine, a program that
has provided free medical services at thousands of concerts - from the
early days of the Grateful Dead to this year's Ozzy Osbourne festival.
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