Multidisciplinary Care for Patients With HIV
Drs Todd Brown and Osama Hamdy comment on various key players who help support patients with HIV.
Grace McComsey, MD, FIDSA: Osama, you deal with diabetes. Do you have the same emotional support system for diabetics?
Osama Hamdy, MD, PhD: Absolutely. We are working in a large center, the Joslin Diabetes Center, [Boston, Massachusetts], which is 120 years old. And Elliott Joslin in the old days said that patients who know more live longer. We spend a significant amount of time in education, educating our patients, engaging them in self-management. Give them the behavior support that they need. We don’t use a blame or guilt technique. We’re always free from self-blaming or self-guilt, especially when it comes to weight gain. We have psychologists working with our patients in [our] weight management program all the time. We have multidisciplinary programs. We were able to show data that people can lose weight and maintain weight for up to 10 years. We are so happy that we’re giving concierge service to all patients with diabetes.
Grace McComsey, MD, FIDSA: That’s great. Todd, you want to add something?
Todd Brown, MD, PhD: Yes. I totally agree with Osama. Diabetes is a complicated disease, and it takes a village to manage it well. All diabetes centers have certified diabetes educators, nurse practitioners who rely on nutritionists. It’s important to tap into all of those resources for your patients. And then the other thing on the other side of this, the dyad, the primary care subspecialist dyad, the communication is just critical. And having been working closely with our HIV clinic at Hopkins for many years now, it’s very natural. Lots of curbsides happen to get the providers who are doing primary care comfortable with some of these medications, whether it be GLP-1 [glucagon-like peptide-1] receptor agonists or in the bone world, bisphosphonates or other drugs. Yes, the communication is critical. And the patients feel secure that way. If they know that I’m communicating with their HIV doc, they feel like we’re all pulling for them together.
Grace McComsey, MD, FIDSA: Thank you for watching this ContagionLive® Peer Exchange. If you enjoyed the content, please subscribe to the e-newsletter so you can receive upcoming Peer Exchanges and other great content. Thank you for listening.
Transcript Edited for Clarity
