Mid-April

I had another successful week volunteering at Legacy Clinic. As I have started cataloguing and alphabetizing the 2009 x-rays, I noticed that there are substantially more x-rays on file from 2009 than from 2008. It is customary for HIV patients to receive regular chest x-rays to monitor the potential progress of secondary disease. I asked the radiology technician why there was such a dramatic increase in the number of x-rays. She told me that the increase could be due to several reasons.

Firstly, many more people have chosen Legacy as an option for receiving healthcare in the past year due to the downturn in the economy. People who would have gone for testing at their family practices have lost insurance due to job termination and financial burdens. The result is an increase in the amount of patients being seen at clinics like Legacy which do not require insurance and offer care at a reasonable price. Also, there may be an increased awareness about the dangers of HIV in the Houston area. Legacy has increased its public outreach to Montrose and greater Houston community to warn people about the possible effects of not getting tested. They do this through free HIV testing available at many bars throughout the week in the Montrose area, and through an internet campaign called the CORE program which targets people who may engage in unsafe practices.

In order to accomodate the recent increases in patient intake, Legacy Clinic is in the process of moving to a new location in the same area of Houston which will provide a larger space to offer care to the community.

April

Things have been going well at Legacy Clinic. I have started cataloging the X-rays from 2009 and will likely continue with this project for the remainder of the semester. With the multitude of things going on between school and the holiday, it has been a test in my ability to juggle so many different commitments. In the chaos of early April, I have come back to my original realization of the interconnectedness between the love of science and healthcare. Despite the demands of a biological education and the time commitment of volunteering in a health facility, it is rewarding to see the merits of science within the laboratory being practiced in the clinic for the good of the community. Science and healthcare are inevitably reliant upon one another, and I feel blessed to be given the opportunity to be a part of both worlds.