I was recently thinking about World AIDS day, which is Dec. 1st. An article about an AIDS conference in Florida that was held this fall caught my interest. As I was reading, I was reflecting on a time about 10 years ago when our community had a very active AIDS organization, and there was a local walk and special events for World AIDS Day. ...

My fellow LPNs: I'd like to pose a question. How do you leave your job and not take your patients with you? Of course I don't mean literally. (Even though I'm sure a few would like to follow me home.) I mean, how do you get them out of your head? How do you leave your patients behind? I am having great difficulty with this. The longer I am here ...

We have volunteers in our clinic who spend several hours each week helping around the office - running errands, filing, running for charts and reports that staff needs. We treasure each and every one of these individuals. There is one standout however, Jon, whom without, our office just wouldn't be the same. He's loyal and dedicated to the staff ...

For many of our patients, their HIV status is the least of their problems. The population of people we deal with not only suffers from the disease, but from their addictions, homelessness, abusive relationships and indifference. I've come to learn that these people view our clinic as much more than just their doctor's office. For a lot of ...

Here is something to ponder:  What do you do as a nursing student (or a nurse) when one of your parents is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease? Such was the case for me in early 1998 when my dad was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I was in the first year of my practical nurse schooling, and I didn't know how much of a ...

June 27th was National HIV Testing Day and the first day our clinic offered free HIV screening. We weren't really sure how the response would be, but it turned out to be fantastic. We saw 25 people between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. We had a real broad range of people walk through our door. Asians, African Americans Latinos, Whites; men and women from as ...

I was having a bad couple days at work recently, and it left me wondering why I went into nursing in the first place. I think all nurses think that from time to time I was doing what I always do in my clinic: talking to my HIV patients, drawing their blood and listening to their stories. But I was struck by one patient who shared a story of her ...