GMHC
So, I didn’t make it to the GMHC volunteer training on time two weeks ago (morning after the party on the peninsula) I was like an hour and a half late, and missed much of the intro to the facilities. “Here are the water heaters, and this is the lock code” kind of stuff. And annoyed people (though I haven’t been nearly as late since then).
So what is GMHC? Well it’s a part of the BFC (Berkeley Free Clinic). It stands for Gay Men’s Health Collective. We do non-HIV std screenings. HIV is handled by HPS, HIV Prevention Services (or something like that).
I’m getting involved in this with the intention of adding some structure/purpose to my life. Tie in with a group and a purpose and a sense of meaning. GMHC is probably not the optimal sub group of the berkeley free clinic for me. I think the information resource collective, the peer counseling collective, or the general medical collective (if I were willing to lose all my weekends for half a year) might better suit the sort of stuff I want to do. On the other hand, hey, I’ll be working with gay men, and some of them are pretty cute, and all of them have a strong idealistic stripe.
I find it amusing that the Gay Men’s Health Collective picked up the collectivist structure from the Women’s Health Collective here, much like cmuOUT (one of cmu’s gay groups, which gets into a whole different political mess) modeled it’s collective style constitution off the cmu Women’s Center’s.
The only training I totally missed went over the basic ground rules, including how the protocols work, general theories of operation, and the all important no giving/recieving of head or of numbers with the clients, and no hanky panky between trainers and trainees,
I’ve had several classes so far. One was collectivism & robert’s rules (thank you APhiO, thank you cmuOUT). Then the orientation to the clinic grounds, and what we do if you accidentally stick yourself with a needle that was just in a client (it is taken quite seriously. Big, long, involved process). Oral sex and health (with throat swabbing lessons at the end). Principles of Unity and Client Care. That one was extremely idealistic, but questionably practical. Hierarchy is bad. (well, is it really? And can we as humans actually do totally without hierarchy?) Authoritarianism doesn’t belong in the medical process, the patient needs to be empowered to make their own decisions, (which is something I agree with). Trained lay volunteers are better than doctors. (Well, sometimes, but I’d definitely have to qualify that one pretty heavily.) And other trainees were all “power to the people.” “YEAH!” “Go Team”, etc. Which made me sad. But anyway. Then Herpes. Then molluscum, warts, scabies, and lice/crabs. And today was all about drugs and harm reduction/abstinence. (more on that shortly).
So far I’ve met interesting guys, and it’s been a good experience and I look forward to continuing along in the group. Whee.