Making Informed Decisions: Your Sexual Health

Sitting at my desk in a room without actual walls, it's easy to hear every conversation around me. I overhear a nurse mention how many patients she's seen today that had syphilis. She felt like almost every other patient she saw needed to be treated. Another nurse chimes in and brings up an article stating that Cook County has the second highest rate of syphilis in the county. No one was surprised. I overhear more stories between the nurses of kids and adults coming in to get treated for their 2nd or 3rd time. I can't help but wonder, where can we come in? Fantus Family Planning Clinic aims to reduce the lack of knowledge in reproductive education and rights for women of all ages and some men.

For the most part, I counsel young women on their contraceptive options. In these sessions, I make sure to bring up condom use and they leave with a bag of 12 condoms. Some get shy, others want 3 or 4 bags. I bring up STD transmission in my sessions and they mostly nod or say they know about it. But how aware are these girls of the seriousness of STDs? Sure they're treatable, but how many of those that are affected are getting proper treatment? Are their partners coming in also? For the most part, the women we see don't bring in their partners, which means they are at the risk of reinfection. At the clinic, we've had to take more concrete measures to inform the patients of the risk that comes with STDs. For the most part, however, patients will mention that their school teaches them about that stuff, but they felt embarrassed to ask questions about their own personal health. There's nothing wrong with that, and that's where we come in. We provide a vast number of services from STD testing to pap smears to birth control. With every visit, a patient is given the option to talk to a health educator about their options. Together, we assess what she is looking for her in her birth control and what will work best for her. Normally, a provider wouldn't be able to sit with a patient and answer all her questions, so this way we can answer any general questions and she can go into her provider visit with a more specific idea of what she's looking for. With the implementation of this educational intervention we have quickened the flow of clinic and providers are able to see more patients.     

I'm a recent college graduate with limited contraceptive background, trying to make sure these girls and women are protecting themselves and those around them. Recently, a patient came in with questions about birth control options and wanted something with hormones. I pointed her to a few different options after asking a series of questions. We just about settled on one option, when she asked me,'So, what does it mean when something has hormones?" I felt terrible after I went through everything and told her the side effects without really telling her what it was going to do to her own body. I assumed she knew what I was talking about without asking her if she knew what she was getting into. I thought to myself, she made all this effort to come into the clinic today, and I couldn't address her real needs. I gave her a bare bones biology lesson, told her about STD's and other infections, and she left that day with a long term contraceptive method. At the end of the day, our clinic strives to have women leave with a contraceptive method. We don't push all the paperwork for nothing. We're all working as one unit to be able to fill in the gaps of the education and stigma surrounding women's health.

This post was written by NHC Chicago Member Nilofer Chollampat, a Health Educator at Fantus Family Planning Clinic.