World AIDS Day is Dec. 1
Wayne State University School of Medicine students, faculty and alumni fight to prevent and treat HIV and AIDS throughout the year.
Here is where you can go for help:
- The Detroit Public Health STD Clinic, hosted by the Wayne State University School of Medicine and Wayne State University Physician Group, which won the Outstanding Achievement in HIV Prevention Award at the 2017 Michigan HIV and STD conference.
- The Corktown Health Center Clinic, a WSU and WSUPG partner clinic and Michigan's first nonprofit medical home dedicated to serving adult LGBTQ patients and their families.
Here are just a few things we have done and are doing to raise awareness and innovate solutions:
Research:
- WSU has a long history in combating AIDS/HIV. The first FDA drug approved to treat the condition, AZT, was developed here and is still used to treat patients.
- In the early 1980s, Dr. Lawrence Crane, M.D. '66, F.A.C.P., F.I.D.S.A., changed the lives of thousands living with HIV when he decided to provide medical care to those with Gay-Related Immune Deficiency, later renamed AIDS. His leadership later made the School of Medicine's Adult HIV program Michigan's largest provider of medical care for those living with HIV.
- A literature review published by a School of Medicine faculty member and medical student showed that the few smoking cessation interventions available for people living with HIV and AIDS are only modestly effective.
Student Outreach and Education:
- WSU medical students will be volunteering at the World AIDS Day Health Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Dec. 1, 2017 at the Corktown Health Center.
- Many WSU medical students have been certified by the state of Michigan to counsel and test patients for HIV.
- Students and graduates present School of Medicine programs at National HIV Prevention Conference.
- In honor of World Aids Day, The Campus Health Center and Delta Zeta offer free testing (for eligible students).
Alumni Advocacy:
- World AIDS Day Detroit was founded in 2011 by Wayne State University School of Medicine alumnus Phillip Kucab, M.D. The annual event was designed as a reawakening of the threat AIDS still plays, and brought perhaps the nation's most famous face of the fight against AIDS - Jeanne White-Ginder, the mother of Ryan White -- to Detroit for the inaugural event.
- WSU School of Medicine alumnus Charles Holmes, M.D., M.P.H., Class of 1999, wrote a column on fighting the HIV pandemic for Huffington Post. He is faculty co-director of the Center for Global Health and Quality at Georgetown University Medical Center