Walter T. Hughes, Jr., M.D. is a physician-scientist of Welsh descent born on a farm in southeast Tennessee in 1930. Educated in public schools through medical school and residency he began his career at the Walter Reed Army Biological Warfare Research Unit in 1956 at Ft. Detrick, MD. Aside from two years of private practice in Pediatrics, his entire career was spent in academic medicine. From Wales to Pneumocystis and AIDS tells how he achieved positions of Eudowood Professor of Pediatrics and Director, Division of Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Professor of Pediatrics, University of Louisville School of Medicine; Professor of Pediatrics, University of Tennessee College of Medicine; Arthur Ashe Chair for Pediatric Aids Research; Chairman, Department of Infectious Diseases at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital; and, the publication of more than 500 scientific articles. Novels written after retirement include The Yellow Martyrs (2000), The Last Leaf (2003), Ghosts of Misery Island (2006) and Suffer the Little Children (2011).