Talking Health Out Loud: How volunteering led to life-saving strategies for teens

Nurse Susan Gold, RN, BSN, ACRN, who works in the UW Health HIV Clinic and Pediatric Infectious Disease Clinic, has volunteered as a nurse in East Africa since 2003. She discusses her journey of hope, learning and teaching, from volunteer to establishing her Talking Health Out Loud project at the March 2017 Global Health Tuesday seminar. Listen here.

Gold received a Fulbright Grant in 2007 to evaluate a curriculum on reproductive health for HIV-positive adolescents. Since 2011, she has led global health field courses to Africa, in which students help teach the HIV curriculum. She talks straight with Kenyan teens about sexuality and HIV/AIDS. Her Talking Health Out Loud mobile platform gives them reliable information about HIV and a safe place to talk about the disease and sexuality.

This year, Gold was awarded a Mandela Washington Fellowship Reciprocal Exchange Award to collaborate with Sicily Mburu, a Kenyan physician who co-founded AIDS No More. The women met during a GHI-hosted conversation in Madison that brought together health care workers from the Young African Leadership Initiative and UW-Madison to discuss their work with HIV/AIDS patients.