The Doctor Is In (Our Fantasies)

It’s both the ultimate embarrassment and the beginning of every gay porno: you arrive for your annual exam, learn that your physician is incredibly hot, and get inappropriately aroused.

Meet Dr. Demetre Daskalakis.

The dashing doc sports tattoos, body hair, a beard and our lascivious admiration. And now he can add this to his résumé: Daskalakis was appointed the Director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That’s a cumbersome way of saying he is way important and compassionate.

In the current climate of fear and desperation, many health concerns have taken a back seat to the novel coronavirus, but Dr. Daskalakis sees opportunity amidst the chaos. He is actively applying the lessons from our current pandemic to the ongoing fight against HIV.

As Daskalakis tells Plus magazine, “Much of the infrastructure for COVID-19 is being built and utilized simultaneously. We need to ask questions about what assets from the COVID-19 infrastructure we could leverage for HIV and other health conditions once COVID-19 is under better control.”

Prior to his ascension to the federal healthcare realm, the good (and gorgeous) doctor had achieved great feats as a leader in the New York City Department of Health. He is bringing his expertise to bear (grrr) in hopes of remedying the recent national disgrace that we all barely survived. In other words, Dr. Daskalakis is treating ignorance with a fresh injection of enlightenment.

“Listening more and talking less was an important part of my strategy in New York City and will be valuable in my new role at the CDC,” he declares.

One of the systemic symptoms that Dr. Daskalakis is targeting: stigma.

“Controlling the HIV epidemic means that we need to relentlessly address the root causes and social determinants that stand in our way. We need to aggressively work to disrupt the systems that create the schism between people based on their identity, including the result of their HIV test. Our work must challenge the core drivers of HIV, including stigma. This job is at its core is an opportunity to dismantle stigma, a challenge that has been key to my entire career.”

Give it to us straight(ish), doc – what’s your bottom line goal in the fight against HIV/AIDS?

“This federal initiative builds on the work CDC has been doing and aims to accelerate the reduction of new HIV transmissions by at least 90 percent by 2030.”

Mmm, he’s as ambitious as he is delicious. Thanks, Dr. Demetre!

Photo: Instagram @drdemetre