Dec. 11: Dante met with Dr. Ba and the entire PT team. Dante reviewed the newly revised PT goals with the team- which everyone was on board with. There were two new people at the meeting, SashaMarie Ayala and Rhonda Way. SahsaMarie is a Community Healthcare Worker and one of 9 people who work under Rhonda's team of CHWs. Dr. Ba invited Rhonda and her team to participate in the PT program along with his Ryan White staff. (Mental note not to get sidetracked like before by prioritizing this team over the Ryan White team). Since it's been two months since we conducted our Mind Matters training, Dante shared the Wheel of Life document/activity with the team so they can revisit and update their Wheel of Life to access how they are spending their energy during these stressful times. Dante thanked the team for completing their mental health assessment survey. 8 people in total completed their survey. Of the 8, high levels of work stress were reported as it pertained to upcoming reports needed to be completed. Dante encouraged them to be kind to themselves and practice some self-care during these stressful times.
Dante also proposed a different approach to disseminating information to medical providers who are unable to make virtual trainings- recording a training with Dr. Haddad, where he and I ask and review common questions and discussion topics for providers who are new to HIV care. Dr. Ba stated Optimus does around 600 HIV tests per month!- to which Dante replied that if that was the case, there shouldn't be any problem linking patients to PrEP. This video recording will aim to address common concerns or worries medical providers might face when providing HIV Prevention Care to patients in hopes of increasing comfortability around prescribing PrEP.
