Dr. Gordon Crofoot is a highly respected Internal Medicine and Infectious Disease specialist with over 40 years of experience in HIV/AIDS care, research, and advocacy. Based in Houston, Texas, he has dedicated his career to advancing healthcare access and treatment for the general LGBTQIA+ & marginalized communities.

Dr. Gordon E. Crofoot Jr. spent his formative years in Glenview, a suburb north of Chicago, Illinois. Growing up in this close-knit community, he developed a strong sense of compassion and a desire to help others, qualities that would later define his medical career.

A graduate of Michigan State University, Dr. Crofoot earned his medical degree from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and completed his Internal Medicine residency at Baylor College of Medicine. In 1998, he became Medical Director at the Montrose Clinic (now Legacy Community Health Services), where he played a pivotal role in developing the Ryan White Title 1 HIV treatment program for uninsured patients and expanding the Next Step program for newly diagnosed individuals.

I was Chief Medical Resident at St Lukes Hospital where I taught the medical students. I assisted Dr. Robert Hall who is in the back row, center of the picture. Dr Hall was President Dwight Eisenhower’s personal doctor at the White House and a well-known cardiologist. What an honor to work with this amazing man.

1977 June I was Hired by Kelsey Seybold Clinic as an Internist to possibly replace Dr. Mavis Kelsey when he retired. He had no plans to retire!

June 1986 I went to the 2nd International AIDS Conference in Paris, France. I arrived just as the meetings were starting. It was so interesting, I did not even have much time to eat or change money. I had just enough Money to get a subway after midnight back to my hotel I waited for a train but the lights were turned off and gates locked. Subway closes at 1:00am. I set off an alarm and the police let me out muttering, “stupid American”. But that first major conference was amazing.

The first major U.S. news broadcast to tackle the crisis head-on Ted Koppel, the iconic host of Nightline News, reached over 25 million Americans five nights a week. On June 5, 1987, he hosted a historic three-hour National Town Hall On AIDS—the first major U.S. news broadcast to tackle the crisis head-on. At a time when no FDA-approved treatments existed, desperation pushed many to seek hope beyond U.S. borders. As a nationally recognized AIDS specialist, I was invited to discuss the harsh reality of the epidemic and the forbidden treatments emerging overseas—drugs that offered hope but remained illegal in America. It was a pivotal moment when the world could no longer turn away.

The Annual Houston Conference on AIDS in America was launched in May 1989 to keep Houston’s AIDS community engaged and informed about the national AIDS landscape. Organized by Houston physicians—Adan Rios (Director), Gordon Crofoot (Co-Director), Gary Brewton, Benjamin Valfre, and Jorge Quesada—the conference aimed to unite experts, advocates, and healthcare professionals in a collaborative environment to develop new strategies against the AIDS epidemic. At that time, the Texas Department of Health estimated that 100,000 Texans were infected with HIV. As we sought to translate this statistic into its profound human, social, and economic impact on Texas and society as a whole, the magnitude of the AIDS crisis became painfully evident. The conference was held annually for eight consecutive years, with no limitations in our efforts to assemble a distinguished faculty each year to share knowledge, foster innovation, and advance the fight against AIDS. Dr Luc Montagnier opened the first and Dr Paul Volberding the last.

May 11th 1989. Dr. Luc Montagnier, the man who discovered the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, we invited him to come to Houston and inaugurate the first Annual Houston Conference on AIDS in America. Dr. Montagnier, to the surprise of many, was aware of Houston’s AIDS problems and was concerned about them. I spoke about an update on HIV care and Dr Montagnier spoke about discovering the virus and developing a blood test for it. Luc Montagnier was awarded The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2008.

In 1998, Dr. Crofoot became Medical Director of Montrose Clinic 501c3 (now Legacy Community Health Services). Dr.Crofoot helped to develop the Ryan White, Title 1, HIV treatment program for people infected with HIV without insurance and to promote the Safe Sex educational program. In 2005 the Montrose Clinic moved and evolved into the Legacy Community Health Center

I have had the opportunity to attend several meetings & dinners with Magic Johnson. We are both Michigan State University graduates. In November 1991, Magic Johnson courageously announced that he was HIV positive when his wife was just seven weeks pregnant. Both remain negative. Magic Johnson has dedicated a significant amount of time to meeting with and educating the Black community, including multiple visits to Houston. I, too, have been actively involved in providing information and support to the Black community. It is crucial to continue raising awareness and 1998 to 2002 offering assistance, especially on important health issues such as HIV/AIDS.

In 2005, Dr. Crofoot, working with the Texas Freedom Foundation in Austin, Texas, testified before the Texas State Board of Education against the "abstinence-only policies" in the public school system and new textbooks. I presented information regarding the sexual activities of young adults and emphasized the need for educational programs focused on the prevention of STDs, teen pregnancies, and HIV transmission. The room was filled with clergy and religious individuals who argued against my position, and ultimately, no changes were made. I was quoted as saying that “distributing four-leaf clovers would be more beneficial than the textbooks in use” As I was leaving the building, a sudden gust of wind caused a branch to fall and scratch my forehead

This was our first meeting with the Secretary of Health of Yucatan, Mexico, José Ángel Córdova Villalobos and Centro Nacional para la Prevención y Control del VIH y el sida(CENSIDA) Dr. Jorge Saavedra, MD .MPH MSC. This first meeting led to the devlopment of Brazos Abiertos 501c3. Our non profit teaching about HIH and starting HIV testing and treatment in the Mayan villages in Yucatan.

Dr. La Verne Abe Harris, along with digital graphic technology students from Purdue University, collaborated to create a new game specifically designed for Mayan Village children in our Brazos Abierto Yucatan non-profit organization. The game allows children to be the best Mayan warrior, earn points, and learn about STDs and HIV infection. This innovative approach was a huge success with the kids, engaging them in an educational and interactive manner. So much fun!!

IAS 2013, the 7th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from 30 June to 3 July 2013. I am an author and presenting the Poster. The research was done at The Crofoot Research Center, Inc

Alexei and I were married in the U.S. in 2012. On July 15, 2015, we were surprised to become the first same-sex couple to marry in Yucatán, Mexico, without a court order. We went to the courthouse with our lawyer, fully expecting to be rejected. To our surprise, they were ready to issue our marriage license. However, there was an issue—Alexei’s birth certificate had no country of birth listed. Fortunately, his paper birth certificate was stored in the same courthouse, and a kind Mayan clerk located it. She reissued the document, officially listing Mexico as his country of birth. With that resolved, we were legally married in Mexico.

OutSpoken was a group of individuals, typically HIV positive, who gathered monthly at a restaurant with a guest speaker to openly discuss various topics related to living with HIV, including relationships, medication management, and overall well-being. This program was established and overseen by CrofootMD and sponsored by Gilead Sciences. Additionally, members of the group often organized and participated in various social activities outside of the monthly meetings. OutSpoken maintained its own Facebook page through which medical questions and concerns were addressed by me, providing support and information to the community as needed. 2014

Nov .2019 Congratulations Team CrofootMD Research for being the first of 16 worldwide sites conducting Johnson & Johnson's new HIV vaccine research study to be authorized to start screening patients. I am proud to say we enrolled the first patient in the world

In February 2020, Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy opened at the CrofootMD clinic to better serve our patients' pharmaceutical needs. This marks the first Walgreens location within a private clinic in Texas. The team of CrofootMD Walgreens pharmacists goes above and beyond to assist our patients, even handling prior authorizations and coordinating multiple medications so that you can pick them up all at once, rather than receiving one prescription every four days each month. Additionally, overnight FedEx shipping is provided free of charge. What a fabulous pharmacy and staff!

February 11, 2021 – Our office was an approved Texas site for administering the COVID-19 vaccine, but we had not received any supply until the severe freeze on February 11, 2021. At that time, the state had vaccine doses allocated for Houston, but the usual distribution sites lacked working freezers due to the power outage. Although our building had no power, our freezers remained operational thanks to our emergency generator. We accepted the vaccines and, in collaboration with Walgreens, quickly organized a free vaccination program in just two days. Using Walgreens' online scheduling system, 500 appointments were booked in just seven minutes. On Sunday, February 14, we successfully vaccinated 560 people in an outdoor clinic, executing the program flawlessly. This became the largest vaccine program ever conducted by a Walgreens Pharmacy