Final Blog!!!

This past week I have been working on my blog log and paper. For this reason I have been reflecting on the course and my experience. The Infected Men's Panel, M&M Simulation, Thrush Simulation, Silverlake Life Movie and the book What Looks Like Crazy are just to name a few assignments that were very interesting. This has been a very hectic and fulfilling semester. I have learned so much and I am more aware of HIV before I enrolled in this course. I will take everything I learned in this course with me on my journey through life. My major is Health Services Administration and I plan to be apart of programs in order to promote HIV Prevention and I want to get involved in funding issues. The impact of HIV on the community is something that cannot be ignored. I can definitely say that this is one of the few classes I have taken that I have grown in. All of the assignments were important to me and was not just busy work. I can't believe that this is my final blog. The semester went by so fast!

Did You Know?

The HIV Prevention Srategic Plan has been extended through 2010 and its short term milestone is to increase the number of providers who routinely provide screening in health care settings. The HIV Prevention Leadership Summit is coming up in 2010 and I hope that the outcome is postitively seen throughout the community. I like that fact that there is a focus on routine screening. If it takes incentives from the insurance companies for physicians to want to recommend routine screening, then that is what needs to happen. Too many people are becoming infected at a fast rate and people are acting as if they do not care. This prevention method will ensure that people know their status and this will decrease the chances of them transmitting it to others. The HIV Prevention Leadership Summit will be a great way to spread awareness and encourage people to protect themselves and to go get tested.

Web: CDC. 2009. Retrieved on November 24, 2009 from, http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/reports/psp/goal_objective.htm

More Prevention....

The QOTW was connected to my blog topic in a way because it focused on finding methods to educate individuals on HIV disease. This is pretty much what prevention is all about. If the current methods are not working, then we cannot continue to do the same thing with no results.
This past week I have been working on my blog log. I'm glad the due date was pushed back though so that I can give myself more time to get everything completed. Now that the holidays are coming up and I just finished the simulation I have been thinking about what it would be like on Thansgiving and Christmas. If I have not told the whole family about my status it would be extremely uncomfortable to take all nineteen pills without making it obivous. I am definitely glad that I left work early and attended the Men's Infected Panel today. I wish I was able to go to the Women's Infected Panel, because Teach said that both panels are different. Since I am a female I would have liked to be able to hear it from a female's point of view as well. I have a completely different outlook on the disease after listening to the panel. They were all full of life and inspire me to be a better person. I admire their strength and their ability to be proactive about their diagnosis.



Did You Know?


There is a project for community based organizations that uses social network strategies. This is an effort to reach persons who are at high risk for HIV infection. The Center for Multicultural Wellness and Prevention in Orlando is apart of the social network strategies. This program focuses on at risk Black and Hispanic young adults starting at the age of 18 in Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties. They enlist HIV positive individuals as recruiters. This person can counsel and provide education to those who test positive or negative. It is refreshing to know that Florida has this type of program, because we are number one in the nation for heterosexual transmission and the general rate of transmission in Orlando is increasing drastically. These types of programs are important in order to educate young adults. A person who has had to live with the disease is a great source of knowledge. I have never met a person who is HIV positive that openly shares it until I took this course. This class has provided me with a great deal of knowledge, but this type of knowledge should be taking place before senior year in college. The challenge that awaits us!

Web: CDC. 2009. Retrieved November 17, 2009 from, http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/prev_prog/AHP/resources/factsheets/SNDP.htm

Prevention continued

I am so happy that the M&M Simulation is over!!!! I understand that HIV is no longer a death sentence, but I already know that I would have an extremely hard time accepting and dealing with the disease if I was HIV positive. I would have to get used to the routine of making pills apart of my day to day routine. It takes a lot of discipline, because I was messing up on my pill routine on the first day. The emotional aspect of it is also very challenging. When I told a few people I was pretending to be HIV positive for a class, their reaction was kind of rude. I can only imagine their reaction if I was really HIV positive. I would never want to share my status with certain people for this reason. The QOTW makes me think about what the world will be like 50 years from now. So many people predict that everyone will have chips planted inside of them in order for the government to track them. I do not want any type of device inserted into my body. I do not think that HIV positive individuals should be tracked due to their status. I do not think that this will decrease the number of HIV cases. The course is coming to an end, but I will definitely take the information I learned with me throughout life.

Did You Know?

Less than 40% of young people globally have correct basic knowledge on HIV. Only a third of HIV positive pregnant women receive antiretrovirals to prevent HIV transmission to their babies. Only a minority of the most at risk groups have access to HIV prevention programmes(UNAIDS, 2008). Can you see why this is a problem? For this reason new HIV prevention technologies has become the focus for the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS meeting in London. New HIV prevention technologies include vaccines, microbicides and other developing methods that could play a role in the transmission rate (UNAIDS, 2008). This will require global partnership among scientists, private sector, communities and the government (UNAIDS, 2008). I admire the hard work of the organization, but I am not very opptimistic about scientists finding a vaccine for HIV. I support all the research and I really hope that one is found, but I am not as positive about it as the organization is. My reason for this is due to the fact that there has never been a vaccine found for a virus. I look forward to learning much more about HIV from developing research.

Web: UNAIDS. 5 November 2008. Retrieved November 11, 2009 from, http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/Resources/FeatureStories/archive/2008/20081105_Focus_new_HIV_prev_tech.asp

So much to learn and time is flying!!!

Today is only the third day of the M&M simulation and I am already tired of taking my medication. There's so much to take and so many times a day that I tend to forget if I have already taken certain pills. So I went to Walgreens and purchased the pill divider so that I can keep track of which pills I have taken. Usually I do not have a problem taking huge pills, but now that I have to take them on such a regular basis, I hate it! Not only does an HIV positive person have to deal with having the disease on an emotional level, but there is a procedure that must be strictly followed in order to remain in good health. I also went through Module 8 this week. The M&M simulation makes me anxious to go to the Infected Men Panel. The reason for this is so that I can learn even more about what it is like to live with the disease. Today at my internship I was telling one of the ladies about this course and she graduated from UCF. She told me that she wished they had this course available when she was a student. I feel like this course should be a requirement, because it will make a huge difference in the number of HIV cases. 

Did You Know? 

The first teen club started in Bostwana in 2005 with 23 teenagers (Plusnews, 2009). Many of the HIV positive teenagers in Bostwana were born with the disease. Being an adolescent is hard enough and having to deal with HIV puts a lot on such a young person. For this reason there is a fun club that is a safe place for HIV positive adolescents to come together without judgment. The members of the club get together for events and support groups. Counseling is provided and the adolescents learn the importance of keeping up with their medication. This program has also had great success in its prevention of mother to child transmission (Plusnews, 2009). Also, this program give adolescents the tools they need in order to disclose their HIV status to future romantic partners. I believe that this program is a great way to prevent transmission among adolescents and young adults. The counseling will give them the strength to make the right decision instead of intentionally passing the disease along. This program also lets adolescents know that they are not alone and it gives them people to talk to who understand their struggle. I am glad that this program has already gone international. This will give adolescents the knowledge they need to make decisions in their future relationships. 

Web: http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=86861