A documentary about the AIDS epidemic in its early years in San Francisco, "Life Before the Lifeboat," is the brainchild of UC San Francisco AIDS pioneering physician Paul Volberding, MD, who is now director of the AIDS Research Institute and director of research for Global Health Sciences. This documentary features Volberding in intimate conversations with some of San Francisco's courageous leaders from the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic when the UCSF-affiliated San Francisco General Hospital was ground zero for the AIDS epidemic. The 30-minute film highlights how political and gay activists, along with health care professionals at SFGH, UCSF and other medical centers, came together to respond to the health crisis and in the process developed what is now a national model of care for this patient population. Produced in 2011.