Introductions

The last 7 days kicked off my first week in the WMS Fellowship working with Dr. Fangman!

For those who aren't familiar with my project this summer, I'll give you a quick introduction. Currently, there are approximately 1 million people in the US living with HIV/AIDS and 40,000 new diagnosis anually. In order to reduce the incidence of HIV infection in Milwaukee and to improve the quality of life for HIV patients, Dr. Fangman and I are initiating a program to help us identify, screen and increase the follow up care of HIV patients presenting in Emergency Departments.

Why focus on ER's?

A lot of our patients are either difficult to reach or prefer to hide their HIV status due to the stigma surrounding the disease. Therefore, the ER gives us a unique opportunity to reconnect with these individuals and link them to aftercare programs like the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin where I am currently working the Dr. Fangman who is the medical director of this location. Furthermore, the ER provides us with another opportunity to screen patients for HIV based on the presence of certain risk factors.

So this all sounds great, but how realistic are these goals? ERs are already overcrowded, overburdened, and overstressed. To get the ER staff to test for HIV and refer them to aftercare is asking them to increase their work load. So right now we are planning on developing a survey to assess what barriers are currently preventing ERs from screening HIV patients.
So that's the plan, stay tuned for updates!

-Chad