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[rivka]

I spent my first full day at my new clinic in P.G. County, mostly figuring out how they do things and planning how to integrate our services. In contrast to the clinic where I spent my internship, and where psychology/behavioral medicine was always scrambling for a toehold, these people are welcoming us with open arms.

We're going to be doing standard mental health care, of course. The poor psychiatric nurse who is doing all the mental health screening and all the psychotherapy right now seems more than eager to turn over new referrals to us until we build up caseloads. But the clinic also wants us to be part of the routine care of every patient. We'll screen all new patients for nonadherence risk factors and transmission risk behaviors. We'll screen people coming in for HIV tests for transmission risk behaviors. And we'll set up interventions as appropriate.

We've been saying for ages that in HIV care you need to assume, as the default, that people are going to have a hard time being adherent and a hard time modifying risky sexual and drug using behaviors. And finally we've found someone who believes us and wants to make those assumptions policy. It's wonderful.

In other news, Misha and I have decided to take a trip to Portland. Tickets aren't as cheap as they were last week, when we were first kicking this idea around, but they're still under $200. I'm excited about showing him all my favorite places, and seeing those places again myself.

Now I have to contact the Portland friends I've been sadly neglecting, to find out if they still like me enough to want to hang out with us. Yay! Portland friends!

Comments

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking, "There's got to be a catch. There's got to be a catch." And I'm sure that I'll find out that there are some annoyances and conflicts once I'm working there regularly. But you know, I don't think there's going to be a big catch. I think these people hired us because they respect Lydia and intend to make use of our expertise. What a strange and wonderful feeling!