https://hivequity.com/blog daily 0.75 2023-08-18 https://hivequity.com/blog/blog-post-seven-7 monthly 0.5 2023-08-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1692384397693-MGNFIXSTC9QDO8PW3XNN/image-asset.jpeg Blog - Charlie and the Wolves Charlie’s life was a beautiful reminder that even the “wolves” among us are Children of God and deserving of our love and grace. https://hivequity.com/blog/blog-post-six-6 monthly 0.5 2023-08-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1664840642404-0OAQCD15U365VT3GF41V/GettyImages-1054920644.jpg Blog - “Stigma” is NOT the Problem . . . It’s time we moved past using the word “stigma” to describe what happens time and again to those we love who are living with HIV. Let’s be more direct with our language and see if we can get better results from words that are clearer and closer to the truth than “stigma”. https://hivequity.com/blog/blog-post-six monthly 0.5 2022-10-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1662501839557-WYNNGWPHK1VVWKUY4MG0/unsplash-image-qBveTFIcbqc.jpg Blog - Not another damn stigma blog! Isolation can literally kill a person. There is power in the realization that it’s time to shift our focus from trying to out-educate ignorance and hate and instead focus on lifting up the individuals bearing the costs of other’s intolerances. https://hivequity.com/blog/blog-post-four monthly 0.5 2022-09-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1661115023373-S5J8L4JJQS8NN0YM6VBP/unsplash-image-oOHBxlGADx4.jpg Blog - A Requiem for Reggie* Every struggling adult was once an innocent child. Seeing the fullness of each life helps us become better clinicians and, in turn, provide more meaningful care. https://hivequity.com/blog/blog-post-three-mouth-of-the-south monthly 0.5 2022-07-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1659282756999-LIC7HNKP4YGKRU06Q036/unsplash-image-H0nmXTsrxE0.jpg Blog - The Mouth of the South https://hivequity.com/blog/blog-post-one-lpksp monthly 0.5 2022-07-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1656463036775-W3R3J0FOXWX5H5GONBCR/unsplash-image-c6Lkc2Lt94s.jpg Blog - A Fortifying Philosophy Your fortifying philosophy will guide you, like a sherpa, to the right decisions and most effective actions. https://hivequity.com/blog/blog-post-two-what-the-hell monthly 0.5 2022-07-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1656797617237-9U5LRXGVGQ2V24MHQY22/unsplash-image-pbJy307PCYA.jpg Blog - What The Hell? A Call To Action We have to take action to stop the social marginalization of anyone living with HIV. Now. https://hivequity.com/home daily 1.0 2022-07-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1657071346470-3FL5DMET7ZLNCS8D9QV3/unsplash-image-6EQYQewfOH0.jpg Home - Vision. Click below to read about my vision for a world where no one living with HIV has to worry about being marginalized and abandoned because they have this disease. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1657379716362-ZW7WP7ZFMKL42XWCUEB5/unsplash-image-g3O5ZtRk2E4.jpg Home - Blog. This is where you’ll find additional insight into why we must change our models of care and strategies and tactics that have proven useful to me. I post new content every two weeks. Subscribe and you’lll get fresh content sent directly to your inbox. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1657383879229-SU9H0CCA13KYHQ7NC1MM/unsplash-image--cCLAMPEsRI.jpg Home - Challenges. Managing HIV is no longer, in the vast majority of cases, a clinical challenge. Ending the HIV epidemic is a political problem - the very people we are trying to engage and retain in care suffer from the unbearable burden of a syndemic of structural ills that discourages and even prevents them from engaging and staying in care. https://hivequity.com/our-vision daily 0.75 2022-07-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1656765763390-BVU5U6QK3ZFIXV7TZNDB/unsplash-image-6EQYQewfOH0.jpg Vision - Social Marginalization because of HIV status is real. And deadly. And wrong. For far too many people, HIV can still be a terminal diagnosis. How can I say that, you ask? How can a highly-experienced HIV provider make such a claim that flies in the face of all of the amazing benefits of antiretrovirals? I say this with confidence and a broken heart because I have spent the last 15 years working to create loving, healing community for people marginalized by their HIV, homelessness, or both. I have cared for far too many people living in fear every day that someone will find out about their HIV diagnosis. People who can’t enjoy the freedom to live the full lives to which they are entitled. People crying, trembling in fear to be in an HIV clinic. People refusing to come to an HIV clinic for fear of being seen there. People overwhelmed by poverty, anti-blackness, and homophobia who also have to deal with the added burden of fear of disclosure of their HIV status. The cumulative burden of all of these life stressors ends up stealing both quality and quantity of life from far too many people. I see a world where we all see each other. I see a world where everyone is valued because of who they are, not because of what they have or don’t have. I see a world where having HIV is normalized and accepted without judgement. I see a world where people living with HIV can cast aside the fears and anxieties that lead to shorter, sadder lives. This is my vision. None of us can change all of the structural ills that debase and devalue individual lives and our communal life, as well. We also can’t stand by while people are suffering today and wait for the long arc of the moral universe to make things right. We can and we must take steps now to embrace innovation in clinical care that empowers and improves the lives of our marginalized patients. https://hivequity.com/pubs-and-presentations daily 0.75 2022-07-10 https://hivequity.com/pathways daily 0.75 2022-07-17 https://hivequity.com/about-me daily 0.75 2022-07-29 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/6e49eab1-b501-49c9-90a9-b09897b0a452/headshot2.jpg About - My area of expertise is creating sustainable, scalable solutions to tackle large social challenges. Thanks for coming to check out my blog. First things first. Everything on this site is an expression of my personal knowledge and experience and is not related in any way to my current employer. This site exists because I believe that conversations around social justice are THE conversations we should be having. This is not a research program, or an academic-funded grant project. I'm a highly experienced Nurse Practitioner who's earned an MBA (finance) and a PhD (clinical nursing research) along my journey. I'm also an accomplished administrator who's worked in very large and very small organizations. I've successfully designed and started programs to address the needs of marginalized people living with HIV, experiencing homelessness, or both. Over the years, I have learned so much from my patients, and this site is a way to share their marginalized voices with a larger audience. My perspective is grounded in Liberation Theology. Projects that I have led are notable for their focus on the agency and dignity of those being served, as well as the efficient use of organizational resources to meet program needs. I hope that you'll read more about my work and the ideas that guide me while you're here. Let me know what you think, as well. After all, the only way forward is on a path that includes all of us. Other Resources If you’re interested in learning more about my professional experiences and background serving people living with HIV and people experiencing homelessness, you can click here to view my resume. I am available for speaking engagements, and this link will allow you to view my one-page biographical statement. Here’s a link to a list of publications and recent presentations. https://hivequity.com/stateofhiv daily 0.75 2022-07-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/1589847914069-83LTMROG2H2YB1JMZ1GS/image-asset.jpeg The State of HIV in the US: 2022 - HIV is not yet done. In the United States in 2020, there were approximately 1.2 million people living with HIV. Scientists estimate that approximately 13%, or 156,000 of those people are unaware of their diagnosis. There are also over 30,000 new infections in the US every year. How can this be? It’s easy when HIV is a disease that commonly presents with mild to no symptoms, or comes masked as COVID-19 or the flu. It’s even easier when HIV is a disease that nobody wants. Would you seek out testing for a disease that leaves you abandoned and forsaken by your own community? A disease that leaves you emotionally scarred and traumatized? In many communities, watching someone be marginalized, humiliated, and abandoned because they have this disease is enough deterrent to dampen efforts to increase testing. We can’t eliminate HIV if we can’t identify where it is hiding. But, we can’t test if the social cost of a positive diagnosis is as high as it is in some communities. Once diagnosed, people living with HIV enter what is called the “HIV Continuum of Care.” This is a tool used in public health to capture how many people are plugged into HIV care at different stages of the process, from HIV diagnosis, to linkage to care, to retention in care, to HIV viral suppression, which is the end goal of HIV treatment. The challenges are not clinical - the challenges are social. At every stage of this Continuum of Care, people living with HIV and their care teams have to fight against HIV stigma, marginalization, and the adverse impacts of the Social Determinants of Health to get people into care and engaged in care for life. It’s an uphill battle for many, and a losing battle for some. My purpose is to help those unable to fight for themselves. To bring them healing. To help them find and enter communities where they are welcome. https://hivequity.com/straightforwardtx daily 0.75 2022-07-07 https://hivequity.com/sdh daily 0.75 2022-07-07 https://hivequity.com/hiv-bill-of-rights daily 0.75 2022-07-16 https://hivequity.com/3challenges daily 0.75 2022-07-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1657382608978-9OBVTS126YVDKH706Y3E/unsplash-image-YNsmMOfmHec.jpg Challenges - Recognize the Fishbowl . . . As clinicians, we are taught to solve problems. We excel at identifying, diagnosing, and treating physical illness at the individual level. While clinical education is shifting, this focus on the individual and their disease has traditionally been the domain of the clinician. It’s time we realize that the environment in which we all live has profound impacts on our patients’ lives. It’s a truism that “the zip code is more important than the genetic code.” We need to expand our vision of clinical care to focus on what we can do to provide our patients with the tools they need to live better lives in a toxic environment. A powerful analogy I use when lecturing may help drive home this point - Let’s stop treating patients like fish and recognize that we all live in fishbowls, and that the fishbowl has to be maintained or the lives of the fish are at risk. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1657071346470-3FL5DMET7ZLNCS8D9QV3/unsplash-image-6EQYQewfOH0.jpg Challenges - Maxed out. . . Current models of clinical care have reached the patients that they are going to reach. While we are incrementally making progress toward National HIV AIDS Strategy goals, we are not paying enough attention to those we are failing to engage in care. It’s time to realize that there are marginalized people whose lives do not conform to the structures imposed by prevalent approaches to care. It’s time to focus on reaching, welcoming, and empowering the people our structures are leaving behind. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/62ba4fab86159b5aaba55df5/1657383362233-EMCI9U9B0C7WGGA6PFSB/unsplash-image-D1E7W9AHE40.jpg Challenges - Build on Success . . . Approaches to care need to change, but there’s no need to fear. The kinds of change that I have successfully led have focused on scalable solutions that maximize existing clinical resources rather than starting from scratch or ignoring the successes that have brought us to this point. We have done well. It’s time to roll up our sleeves, open our hearts and our imaginations and introduce creative changes to focus on the needs of those we are failing to reach with existing approaches to care. https://hivequity.com/donate daily 0.75 2025-05-09