GW-NASTAD Clinical Public Health Summit on HIV
Every year, NASTAD and the George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) partner to create an opportunity for current GW first-year medical students to study the federal "Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America" initiative and develop innovative proposals to address the HIV epidemic at the local level.
At the Summit, students have the opportunity to learn directly from senior HIV/AIDS officials and experts fighting to end HIV at the federal, state, city, and community levels. Over past years, NASTAD and GW have hosted HIV/AIDS officials from across the country - from Washington State to Washington, D.C. - to work with GW medical students during this summit.
The Clinical Public Health Summit on HIV is constructed as a scientific conference and problem-solving activity in which students are exposed to the latest data on HIV/AIDS, interact with scientific and public health experts in the field, and are charged with working in teams to develop a state- or city-level action plan to improve HIV/AIDS community health. The Summit provides students with experience in the Clinical Public Health roles that await them as physicians who practice modern, socially-conscious medicine, and as community health leaders who can translate basic sciences, pharmacotherapy, epidemiology, and knowledge of health systems into population-level action.
As future physicians here in the U.S., or if you choose to practice globally, you recognize that today’s physicians do more than practice medicine at the individual patient level.
You have to recognize that to really understand an individual’s full health, we must understand all of the different domains of health, including the social context of the patients live in. This summit does exactly that.
Students will work in teams focusing on one jurisdiction (state or city). Each jurisdiction team will be led by volunteer student coordinator(s) and will carry out a research plan to review primary sources and expert opinions in order to prepare a report and recommendations to enhance your state/city jurisdiction’s HIV/AIDS action plan. Each of the scheduled Summit events will provide students with an opportunity to inform their report and recommendations.
A successful final report will provide recommendations specific to the hardest hit communities (hotspots) in your state/city jurisdiction in an effort to end the epidemic locally. The final report will be submitted in written format and presented in oral format to an expert panel on the final day.
Samples of Students Proposals:
- Development and dissemination of mobile apps for immediate direct-to-consumer delivery of HIV rapid test kits, linkage to access programs for PrEP (Pre-exposure prophylaxis medication), and promotion of HIV medication adherence.
- Continuing medical education incentives for improved primary care/family medicine/ob-gyn training in routine HIV medicine, with deployment of virtual/telemedicine HIV specialty back-up.
- Medical student loan forgiveness programs or business tax incentives for physicians who provide broad HIV test counseling and testing for their patients.
- Programs for improved access to clean needles (i.e., in pharmacies or public vending machines) and medication-assisted treatments for people who inject drugs.