Lydia Aoun-Barakat, MD

Lydia Aoun-Barakat, MD, is an infectious diseases specialist who is recognized nationally for her work with HIV/AIDS. She is the medical director of the Nathan Smith Clinic at Yale New Haven Hospital and the program director of the HIV Primary Care Training Track at Yale, which provides care for more than 900 adults with the disease. She says she has always been driven by “the privilege to serve this special population.”

An associate professor of medicine (AIDS), Dr. Barakat says one of her goals is to help change the “health disparity and human injustice associated with HIV.” In addition to her clinical practice, she is an active researcher pursuing ongoing projects on HIV outcomes and aging. She has received and contributed in multiple federal grants dedicated to serving people who are living with HIV/AIDS and are in need of a long-term vision in achieving a high standard quality of care while focusing on outcome measures. Dr. Barakat also enjoys the investigative process involved in diagnosing other challenging infectious disease cases. She garnered attention for her work in two notable cases: “Fatal Inhalation Anthrax in a 94-year-old Connecticut Woman” published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and a patient who almost lost his vision due to cat scratch disease reported in The New York Times magazine.