The Luck Care Center is the manifest vision of the late Dr. Sherry Luck who, in 1994, saw the need for local
providers to care for HIV infected and affected persons in underserved area of Chicago. Through diligence
and perseverance, Dr. Luck was instrumental in providing HIV-positive patients on the far south side with
expert medical care. Sherry L. Luck, MD, medical director, founded the Roseland Community Hospital HIV
clinic in 1994 with her own personal funds and later funding from the Ryan White Care Act to provide
quality services. After Dr. Luck’s untimely death in 1999, the clinic was renamed in her honor (1954-1999).
Today, Dr. William Johnson and his wife Bethsheba Johnson continue the vision of Dr. Sherry Luck. Dr.
William Johnson is the Medical Director of the Luck Care Center and President of the Southside Health
Association. Bethsheba Johnson is a Nurse Practitioner and Luck Care Center’s Clinical Coordinator.
The Luck Care Center is an HIV/AIDS primary care specialty clinic. Our mission is to provide comprehensive,
culturally competent, holistic and compassionate care to our HIV-positive clients. People with HIV/AIDS
have unique problems that go beyond the medical aspects of the disease. The social stigma associated
with HIV/AIDS requently results in loss of emotional and physical support from family and friends. Even
when this support exists, the enormous demands of the disease can create burdens beyond the patient’s
and/or their family’s ability to cope.
Having a specialty clinic with a multidisciplinary team allows for anticipation of needs before they occur
and provides for coordination of efforts focused on meeting such needs. When a person has HIV/AIDS, the
whole community is affected. The Luck Care Center is a response to the dire need in our community. Prior
to establishing this clinic a comprehensive program to address the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS on
the far Southside of Chicago did not exist.
The Luck Care Center serves over 200 HIV/AIDS positive persons annually in the Chicago land area. We
serve a primarily indigent population with the vast majority of patients being uninsured or underinsured.
Regardless of a patients ability to pay no patient is refused healthcare at the Luck Care Center. The Luck
Care Center is the only clinic independently operated by African Americans in the state of Illinois serving
the growing number of African American infected and affected by HIV/AIDS on the Southside of Chicago.
William A. Johnson, MD
Dr. Johnson is a board-certified specialist in Internal Medicine as well as board certification in Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He graduated from the University Of Chicago Pritzker School Of Medicine in 1987 and completed residency training in Internal Medicine at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago, IL. He is President, Executive Director and Medical Director of the Luck Care Center a HIV/AIDS clinic on the south side of Chicago. He is co-chair of the South Side HIV Providers Forum which functions as an educational and networking opportunity for practitioners who treat people with HIV and Chairs Walgreens Community Task Force. He has been a hospice physician since 1994 and currently functions as inpatient physician for Vitas Innovative Hospice in Chicago. He also has a private practice in general Internal Medicine. Dr. Johnson is the immediate past president of the Cook County Physicians Association, the Chicago society of the National Medical Association. He was the recipient of the Monarch Award in Medicine in 2001, Trailblazer in Healthcare by Rainbow Push Coalition in 2005, Prevention Person of the Year 2005, Advocate Provider Award with his wife, Bethsheba, from the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago in 2002 for the work that they have done with their patients, and named included in Who’s Who in Black Chicago, the Inaugural edition, 2006 as one of Chicago’s Most Influential. On April 4, 2007, Dr. Johnson was awarded the “Voice of the People Award” by the Let’s Talk, Let’s Test Foundation.
Bethsheba Johnson
Bethsheba Johnson is a board certified gerontological nurse practitioner. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Chicago State University and went on to complete her Master’s of Science in Nursing at Rush University as a Clinical Nurse Specialist. In 1997, Ms. Johnson completed her post Master’s certificate as a Gerontological Nurse Practitioner. Her experience covers surgical nursing for patients with head and neck cancer, surgical intensive care and pulmonary medicine. She has also been certified as an APPEAL (A Progressive Palliative Care Educational Curriculum for the Care of African Americans at Life’s End (APPEAL) and EPEC (Education for Physicians at End of Life Care) trainer. Ms. Johnson is also certified as an Advanced AIDS Certified Registered Nurse.
Ms. Johnson currently works for the Southside Health Association at the Luck Care Center, an HIV/AIDS Primary Care Ambulatory Center since being hired by Dr. Sherry Luck in 1997. The Luck Care Center’s 200 patients are primarily African American and underinsured. The center provides HIV primary care, dietician consultation, substance abuse counseling, mental health counseling, bioelectric impedance analysis, peer educators, support groups, clinical trails, complimentary therapies, prevention case management, adherence case management, and HIV case management.
She is also clinical faculty for the Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center located in the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She has been appointed by Mayor Daley of Chicago to the Chicago HIV Planning Services Council and has received an award with her husband in 2002 from the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago as Provider Advocates of the Year. In 2005, she was chosen as one of the recipients of The Body’s HIV Leadership Award in the Outstanding HIV/AIDS Nurse Category. On October 28, 2005, Bethsheba received the Excellence in Health Sciences award from Chicago State University and an Outstanding Clinical Supervisor from Governors State University on April 22, 2004. Ms. Johnson has traveled to South Africa with her husband to provide consultation to hospices caring for patients with HIV/AIDS and Ethiopia to train paraprofessionals in HIV/AIDS. She is also shares a membership position with Dr. William Johnson on the Board of Directors for the Foundation for Sub-Saharan Hospices in Africa. In 2004, she and her husband have been featured in the July/August edition of Positively Aware Magazine. Ms. Johnson returned in September from 3 months volunteering with the joint initiative between the International Center for Equal Healthcare Access (ICEHA) to Provide HIV/AIDS and Operational Training to Local Healthcare Providers in Ethiopia and the Clinton Foundation’s HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. She is also a member of the AAHIV and ANAC. |
