In the largest sense, the AIDS Program at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) refers to the totality of AIDS-related activities at the hospital. More commonly, however, the phrase is used to refer to the outpatient AIDS Clinic and a number of short- and long-term research projects loosely connected to it.

The AIDS Program declares that its mission is to:

Although it is now surmised that people with HIV disease were patients at SFGH as early as 1980, the first documented case, a man with Kaposi's Sarcoma, was identified in June of 1981. During late 1981 and early 1982 the Kaposi's Sarcoma Clinic was formed at UCSF by Paul Volberding and Marcus Conant. Patients were evaluated at UCSF and referred to the Oncology Clinic at SFGH for treatment. Other opportunistic infections in KS patients, primarily pneumocistis pneumonia (PCP), were managed by Constance Wofsy, Acting Chief of Infectious Diseases at SFGH. These components were brought together when the AIDS Clinic was opened on Ward 86 in January of 1983. The inpatient ward at SFGH, Ward 5B, was opened a few months later, in June of 1983.

In July of 1983, Dr. Donald Abrams came to Ward 86 from UCSF. Nurse Practitioners J.B.Molaghan and Gary Carr joined the staff in November of 1983. Volberding, Wofsy (deceased), Abrams, Molaghan and Carr were the nucleus around which the AIDS Program grew. Eventually, other program elements developed out of the AIDS Ward, including numerous research entities, clinical programs, and educational components.