First Impressions

So I've finally started my summer research project as of last week!

While I haven't made significant progress in changing society saving lives or fixing our health care system, I have spent a lot of time reading research literature. I spent the majority of my time at my little desk and ARCW extensively reviewing the literature on HIV and ERs. It may not sound exciting, but I have learned a lot of interesting things about HIV testing in ERs and health care utilization by HIV patients. Don't worry, I won't bore you with the details. :)

The really interesting experiences have come from my shadowing experiences with Dr. Fangman. Last week Dr. Fangman allowed me to shadow him during this clinic hours here at ARCW. The patients we saw were truly astounding! Not because they had some incredible disease I've never heard of. Instead, the social histories and lives that these HIV patients face everyday is so radically different from my own experiences that it has drastically changed my perspective of these patients. So many of these people have faced violence, drugs, alcohol and death that it amazes me that they even show up for their routine HIV visits. Most of the patients can't drive or don't have cars, so they have to rely on public transportation or the good will of others to get to work, a grocery store or to an HIV clinic like ARCW. It is quickly becoming apparent that there exists several barriers to proper care for these individuals.

So what happens when they stop showing up for routine HIV care?

When an HIV patient stops adhering to their medications, their health will deteriorate rather quickly resulting in increased visits to the ER with AIDS related illnesses or opportunistic infections. Currently, ERs rarely screen their patients for HIV even when a patient presents with AIDS related symptoms or high risk factors like STD's. Even fewer refer HIV patients to aftercare clinics like ARCW. We hope to develop a system in which we can monitor ARCW patients who present to an ER in hope that we can reconnect with these individuals to improve their quality of life. We also are aiming to increase HIV testing in ERs to catch more HIV patients before they progress to AIDS.

There's a lot of work ahead of us with this project. There's only so much I can aim to achieve this summer with such goals. It's ambitious I know, but that's why I wanted to be a part of it.

-Chad