oh so edgy

So in case you don't want to read my previous preachy/scary entry about why you or someone you love need/s to stop smoking RIGHT NOW, you can occupy that browsing (procrastinating?) mind by reading an article about the clinic I help co-direct. As I've written before, our clinic is student-run, free, and organized in cooperation with Harm Reduction Services of Sacramento. We were set up to provide health care to some of the most medically marginalized populations of Sacramento (IV drugs users, sex workers, and their families), but since we've become "mobile", we have begun to see a more diverse population. This article is unique because the journalist took the time to follow us for several weeks and meet many of our patients. He did a great job of expressing some of their needs, and documenting what an average day at our clinic can be like. However, I am a litle concerned that the article focuses so heavily on the "drug use" aspect of our patients, especially since several of the people who are pictured in the article (such as the bald man who was one of my patients that day) were not actually drug users. The level of intimacy that this article allows the readers to achieve with some of the patients is both powerful and disturbing. I doubt, as a friend of mine pointed out, that we would be allowed to know so much about the private lives of more wealthy and privilaged patients who are seen at a private clinic for similar issues.

Anyway, here is the link:
http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2005-06-30/cover.asp