Patient & Community Voices: Learning from Persons Living with HIV

On November 9th, Patient and Community Voices presented Positive Reflections from Voices Unheard: Learning from Persons Living with HIV. This powerful patient led workshop introduced UBC Healthcare students to the realities of living with HIV.

Two Health Mentors from the HIV community shared stories and their personal experiences dealing with the BC medical system. The workshop provided HIV client resources and covered topics such as HIV transmission, medications, patient centred care, and medical stigma. Twenty two students attended from six disciplines (Medicine, Occupational Therapy, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health, Speech Language Pathology) and they scored the workshop 4.5 of 5.

“I learned so much! There was so much I did not know about HIV/AIDS that was brought up during this workshop. I knew that a stigmatism exists surrounding those living with the virus; however, I did not know that things like travel were still restricted because of this. I also did not know how advanced the medicine & technology have come. I enjoyed learning about the specific experiences that the panelists faced,” OT Student

“I didn’t really know much about HIV leading up to this seminar, so I learned a lot about the virus and how it can affect someone’s daily experience of life. I also learned a lot about how the stigma around HIV has evolved, yet there is still a lot of work to do,” Speech Language Pathology Student

Next Workshop

The Impacts of Poorly Understood Complex Chronic Conditions
Partners: ME Victoria Association, MEFM Society of BC, MEFM Action Network, BC Lyme Society
Jan 22, 6-8pm, Zoom