CHOamino

To end this topic, today I met with the head of infectious disease at a local hospital.

I was prepared for the worst since this guy is 70+ at a catholic(?) hospital. Luckily, he had minimal questions to ask. Sent me for a lab panel and gave me a prescription. Still, he made one comment that bugged me. While deciding which labs to order he said something along the lines of 'I'm going to order a HepB surface antigen test since you've chosen not to use barrier protection'. On this site that might not sound bizzare, but to have a doctor just assume such a thing right infront of me got my heart rate going.

The urgency to deal with HIV and AIDS just doesn't exist anymore.

I feel like THIS is the case after my recent experience. I can't find anywhere that's within 40mi that's a walk-in clinic where I could get tested and discuss PreP. There's a Planned Parenthood, which is typically surrounded by protesters, and I know they ask for insurance to get testing done. So why not just go to my primary doctor?

Your situation seems to have started off just like mine, like you said. Upsettingly it seems your 'twist' on the story seems to have worked out the better for you. I am still awaiting the ID specialist. Whether he actually prescribes is a different story. Also, whether he spends his time belittling me is another.

The American Academy of HIV Medicine has a site that provides a search engine providing referral information to their certified health care providers. There's a check box that filters for doctors that provide PrEP. It's located at this link.

 

Perhaps this will be of help. Good luck!

Thank you. This website only reports one doctor in my immediate local that is PrEP certified through them. It's also, no surpise, not the ID specialist I was referred to see.

Your primary care physician sounds like an uninformed, judgmental douche. I would go to the infectious disease specialist and also take this as a sign that it's time to get a new general practitioner.

You are not the first person to tell me that, at least not in real life.

I think your Primary Care Physician did the correct thing when it comes to taking medication like this you need someone that knows about it and he had no knowledge so forwarding you to a specialst was good on his part if he wanted to be annoying he could of just refused but he didn't.

 

The only bad thing I would say is he should of done some blood work first before giving you the 15 day worth but I think he only gave you this amount to cover himself upto your appointment with the other people so if you did say get infected you can't go back or take action saying you was refused ways to protect yourself.

I understand the point you are making. But I will have to lean with Spike-the-cat on this one. This post only contains one interaction with my doctor. And a rather personal one at that. Overall I would say a culturally-conservative straight male does not make the best primary care physician for me. I don't choose a doctor on their bedside manner, but I will choose a doctor based on their ability to understand the problem at hand. As a gay male in his 20's, he doesn't fit the criteria for me.

Not sure what happened with the doc between the first visit and the most recent. (Don't know - don't care.) Perhaps its our job to educate our health providers when they're unaware.

I don't think he wanted to be educated...

...at first he didn't know what I was talking about. Then he informed me he was the wrong person to ask, I had to go to specially trained doctors. I told him the CDC and Gilead website all said to talk to my primary care physician. He looked it up and agreed the website goes around the subject and isn't clear. So, he told me he wasn't comfortable and gave me a referral to an infectious disease specialist. He then sent me on my, not so merry, way, with a 15 day supply and said that this was a 'One time thing'.

Has anyone had this confusing situation occur to them? I don't seem to think going to an infectious disease specialist will make much of a difference. My story, and concerns, are the same. Looking online I haven't found any helpful information about actually obtaining a prescription in my area. While this website is useful, most of the information disseminated here is political in origin or scientific in nature. Nothing seems to give me practical advice.