S3 E14: Monkeypox: Where are We Now? with Dr. Peter Chin-Hong

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Host Tammy Kremer chats with UCSF Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Peter Chin-Hong about the current state of the Mpox outbreak: how it reflects contemporary health inequities, how stigma can be a barrier to people accessing treatment, and how lessons learned from past public health crises shaped the clinical and community response. Dr. Chin-Hong speaks about his experience caring for Mpox patients over the course of the outbreak, and how the stigma surrounding the virus has discouraged individuals from seeking out the necessary care, creating invisible populations of patients who are disconnected from diagnosis and treatment. Finally, he breaks down the social and behavioral interventions that have been effective in slowing the spread of the virus over the past months. They explore the role of public health education and messaging in the Mpox outbreak and how Dr. Chin-Hong anticipates the outbreak may proceed.

Read the transcript of the episode here.

CAPTC-Related Training and Resources:

S3 E8: Monkeypox in California: A Personal Story and Public Health Perspective

S3 E3: Monkeypox, What’s the Hype?

CAPTC Monkeypox FAQ’s

CDC Monkeypox Resource Center

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Peter Chin-Hong, MD, is a professor of medicine and associate dean at UCSF. He specializes in treating infectious diseases, especially in immunosuppressed patients such as recipients of organ and stem cell transplants and HIV-positive recipients of organ transplants. He is regularly featured in the media discussing COVID-19 and Mpox.

S3 E12: Four Decades of Sexual Health: History of the CAPTC

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Director of the CAPTC Dana Cropper sits down with Gail Bolan, MD, and Alice Gandelman to discuss the founding of the CAPTC and its work in supporting sexual healthcare providers over the last 33 years. We learn about the forces that shaped the sexual healthcare field. Our guests unpack how the CAPTC developed alongside the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s, the surprising relationship between HIV work and STI response, strategies to meet sexual healthcare needs both within and outside of sexual health clinics, and the ever-present need for greater training for providers around testing and treatment of STIs. We learn about how behavioral interventions were centered in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the importance of centering social determinants of health and larger structural forces in prevention and treatment efforts. They also discuss their hopes for opening up discussions about sexual health and de-stigmatizing the topic in the greater community.

Read the transcript of the episode here.

Resources:

HHS/Viral Hepatitis Action Plan

Ending the HIV Epidemic in the US (EHE)

Provision of Quality of STD Services (CDC) 2020

San Francisco City Clinic

Health HIV

National Coalition for Sexual Health

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Gail Bolan, MD, was the Director of the Division of STD Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2011 through 2020. Prior to joining CDC, she directed the California Prevention Training Center for 23 years. She served as the Chief of the STD Control Branch at the California Department of Public Health and the Director of the San Francisco City and County STD Prevention and Control Program from 1997 to 2011 as well as Medical Director of the San Francisco City Clinic from 1987 to 1997. 

Alice Gandelman was the Director of the CAPTC from 1994 through 2021. She oversaw growth and development of CAPTC in numerous training and capacity-building programs in STD, HIV, sexual, and reproductive health.

S3 E10: How Identity, Trauma, and Relationship Structure Affect Pleasure and Consent with Psychotherapist Sam Kendakur

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CW: Sexual Trauma

Psychotherapist Sam Kendakur talks with Tammy about the intersections of sexual health and mental health. Listen in for nuanced conversations about the gray areas and messiness of consent; how to piece apart our own understandings of sexual pleasure, desire, and attraction; the impacts of stigma on sexual and gender identity and those who choose non-monogamous relationship styles. We learn about the unexpected impacts healthcare providers can have on the wellbeing of folks with marginalized sexual, gender, and racial identities, especially when there are stark differences between the provider and client’s lived experiences.

Download the transcript for this episode here.

Resources:

Sam Kendakur’s website
Reading Guide from Shrimp Teeth: The Best Polyamory, Sex, and Queer Books
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern
Higher Education Scholarship Opportunities for LGBTQ+ students listed at Edumed, Petersons, and gograd

Sam Kendakur has worked in the mental health field for the past 12 years in a variety of settings across college campuses, inpatient psychiatric hospitals, alternative peer support networks, clinics, institutes, and currently private clinical practice. He’s invested in creating spaces that make healing accessible and relevant to people from different realms of experience, especially those that inhabit marginalized spaces. The social structure and health care system have failed so many, and he tries to address and combat these shortcomings through a commitment to client-centered anti-oppression practices that honor that suffering is most often nested within inequitable and unjust systems and their consequences rather than individual lack. He specializes in working with the LGBTQIA community, BDSM and kink, race and ethnicity, trauma, and alternative relationship styles.

CDC Genital Herpes Fact Sheet

Basic and detailed patient-facing fact sheets about prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of genital herpes.

Visit site

S3 Ep8: Mpox in California: A Personal Story and Public Health Perspective

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Stephan Ferris, a Bay Area activist lawyer, received one of the first 40 reported diagnoses of mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) after attending a Pride celebration in San Francisco, California. Here, Ferris sits down with host, Tammy Kremer, and Dr. Akanksha Vaidya, a clinical fellow responding to the current health crisis, to share his experience and discuss the need for improving treatment accessibility and provider education concerning a mpox diagnosis.

This is a follow-up on an episode we put out on June 1st of this year with Dr. Ina Park at a very different stage of the spread of mpox. With the US and the World Health Organization declaring this a public health emergency, Ferris and Dr. Vaidya use their respective lenses to reflect on representation of this disease in the media, transmission, and the stigma associated with those who receive a diagnosis. As commercial labs begin to provide greater testing capacity, the group discusses improving messaging about limited vaccine supply and other treatment options for groups most vulnerable and individuals experiencing moderate symptoms.

Download the transcript of this episode.

Resources Mentioned:

Stephan Ferris’s Website and Reading is Fundemental Podcast
CDPH About Monkeypox and California Data
CDPH Monkeypox Clinical Assist Evaluation Tool
CDC Monitor Monkeypox Exposure
CDC Monkeypox Updates and Topics
Also be sure to check out Dr. Justin Lehmiller’s great monkeypox explainer, too!

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Stephan Ferris is an openly queer and activist lawyer who focuses on entertainment law with an emphasis on uplifting LGBTQ+ voices. Stephan is also the producer and co-host of the entertainment law podcast Reading is Fundamental. He volunteers with various Bay Area LGBTQI+ organizations and is on the board of directors for Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom (“BALIF”), a community of LGBTQI+ legal professionals.

Dr. Akanksha Vaidya is a clinical fellow trained in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the California Prevention Training Center. She completed her medical degree at Cornell University and her residency in Internal Medicine at Emory University in Atlanta. She came to UCSF in July 2020 for her Infectious Diseases Fellowship. Her research and professional interests include improving health equity and access to care for people with STIs and HIV.

S3 Ep7: Breaking Down STI Stigma with Dr. Ina Park & Courtney Brame

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CW: Suicide, Suicidal Ideation

Courtney Brame, the founder of Something Positive for Positive People (SPFPP), sits down with guest-host Dr. Ina Park to discuss the ongoing need to foster spaces that destigmatize STI diagnoses. In the ninth year of his herpes (HSV-2) diagnosis, Courtney speaks on navigating life with the virus and what drove him to connect with people struggling with mental health issues as a result of their herpes status. What started as informally providing solidarity to those living with herpes, quickly became a podcast and platform for sharing the experiences of those battling societal stigma and self-shaming, creating pathways to disclosing their status and tools that can make waiting for a vaccine more manageable.

Courtney says that “sexual health is mental health.” He hopes to expand the mental health resources available to those living with herpes and use the collective stories of the SPFPP community to inform health care practices, especially the delivery of an HSV diagnosis. Courtney engages those living with a positive diagnosis and their allies to transform the stigma that often works to silence them.

Download the transcript of this episode.

Have any questions, concerns, or love letters? Send us a message on Instagram @comingtogetherpod or email us at comingtogetherpod@ucsf.edu. Don’t forget to leave us a review on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Resources:

Donate to Something Positive for Positive People
SPFPP website
SPFPP podcast
HSV Survey results mentioned
Dr. Ina Park’s Instagram, twitter, and website
Strange Bedfellows by Dr. Park
Penny for your thoughts campaign

Courtney Brame (he/him) is the founder of Something Positive for Positive People, a 501c3 nonprofit organization highlighting the intersections of sexual health and mental health stigma. After discovering that many people diagnosed with herpes struggled with suicide ideation, Brame decided to interview those living with herpes and share their stories with other folks navigating herpes stigma. Something Positive for Positive People also works to give health care professionals tools they can use to provide anti-stigmatizing, identity validating, sex-positive health care. Courtney also hosts a podcast, called Something Positive for Positive People, where you can hear these stories and experiences directly.

CDC Syphilis Fact Sheet

Basic and detailed patient-facing fact sheets about prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of syphilis, including congenital syphilis.

Visit site

S3 Ep3: Monkeypox, What’s The Hype?

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This special episode features Dr. Ina Park discussing monkeypox: what it is, what’s the hype, and how worried (hint: not very) she is about the spread.

Download the transcript of the episode here.

Follow Dr. Ina Park on Instagram and Twitter.

Resources:

CDC

Strange Bedfellows: Adventures in the Science, History, and Surprising Secrets of STDs.

Turn on notifications to never miss an episode of Coming Together for Sexual Health.

Follow Coming Together for Sexual Health on Instagram and Twitter.

Dr. Ina Park, MS, is the medical director at the California Prevention Training Center. She is a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California San Francisco and a medical consultant in the Division of STD Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

California Guidelines for Suspected Gonorrhea Treatment Failure

Discusses treatment of uncomplicated gonorrhea and what clinicians should do in cases of potential treatment failures.

View PDF

Use of Treponemal Immunoassays for Screening and Diagnosis of Syphilis

Guidance for medical providers and laboratories in California. Includes laboratory procedures and reporting, results interpretation, congenital syphilis, integration of HIV and other STI testing, partner management, serologic follow-up, public health reporting, and clinical consultation options.

View PDF