A Family Medicine Provider’s Reflections on World AIDS Day

Posted on November 18, 2014 by | 1 comment
Jarrett Sell, MD

Jarrett Sell, MD

I consider my path to caring for persons affected by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to be atypical, but maybe that is true of many family medicine providers involved in HIV care—only a minority of family medicine providers in the United States offer HIV care.

I, like many family medicine residents recently graduating from residency, assumed that HIV care was too complex and rapidly changing for me to become involved and that it would be unlikely to impact my future practice, particularly since I was planning to practice in a rural area.  I thought that this was a condition that is best left to the care of specialists or those that planned to practice in the inner cities of San Francisco or New York. What I did not realize at the time was that HIV is everywhere and cannot be ignored by family medicine providers.

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Posted in Family Medicine Stories, HIV and Viral Hepatitis Collaborative

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The First Job

Posted on November 12, 2014 by | 1 comment
Virginia Van Duyne, MD

Virginia Van
Duyne, MD

I have always been sure of my desire to become a family doctor but within my first year out of residency, the assuredness in my course was turned on its head. Maybe some of you have been in the same position. Maybe, like me, your early assurance carried you through many long hours in the library and wards of medical school and the early mornings and late nights of residency. Then before you knew it, you were in the last year of residency about to launch into your first real job as a doctor. For me, the importance of this decision was weighty; it was the pinnacle of all those years of training, finally my chance to go out and do what I had set out to do.

Graduation came and went and soon my husband, our two young children, and I were packing up our home to trek across country where we would set up a new life and establish a career in a rural, underserved community. I jumped headfirst into the practice and community.  At first, my pediatric patients would hide behind their mom’s legs and eye my blonde hair and tallness suspiciously. Many times I laughed with my patients as I made yet another mistake in Spanish, but they delighted in helping me to perfect my Mexican accent. They brought me cantaloupes and I delivered their babies. The staff embraced me as their own families’ doctor and I learned the ecstasy of fresh, hand-made tortillas.

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Posted in Faculty Development, Family Medicine Stories, New Faculty in Family Medicine Collaborative

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Ending the Silence

Posted on October 30, 2014 by | 2 comments
Suzanne Leonard Harrison, MD

Suzanne Leonard Harrison, MD

People are talking about domestic violence. Finally.

One good thing that has emerged from the media attention with domestic violence and the NFL is that people are talking about it. During the week following release of the Ray Rice video it was all over the national news, making it easy to engage both men and women in conversations about domestic violence. While the video was playing on a television in a Texas airport, I asked a young man what he thought about it. He looked directly at me and said, “I don’t think you want to know what I think.” After I assured him I did, he shared some very negative remarks about men who perpetrate violence against women. The significance for me was that it was easy to engage a man I had never met in a meaningful conversation about domestic violence. The National Domestic Violence Hotline experienced an 84% increase in calls in the days following release of the video.[1]  Perhaps we finally entered an era when the silence has ended. I sincerely hope so.

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Posted in Family Medicine Stories, Group on Violence Education and Prevention

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