Let's Get Real About PrEP: For Community Outreach Workers

Richard Elion is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine and an Adjunct Professor in the Milliken School of Public Health at GW as well. Dr. Elion is co-director of the HIV/HCV clinical and research program at Providence Hospital. He also serves as Vice President of Strategy for Trio Health. Dr. Elion graduated from the Temple University School of Medicine and did his residency at Duke University Medical Center. He has also completed the course work for a Masters in Counseling from University of Santa Monica. Dr. Elion has also been an active investigator in HIV prevention and PrEP and was the principal investigator in the PrEP demo project recently published in JAMA.

Dr. Elion has had an active clinical practice for over thirty years and had been the Prinicipal Investigator of numerous clinical trials including the newly formed Aids Clinical Trial Group site in Washington DC as well as the PI for the Multicenter Aids Cohort Study in conjunction with Johns Hopkins. He was a founding member of the American Academy of HIV Medicine and a past board member of the HIVMA, a division of the IDSA. He is working on various HIV prevention projects with the Department of Health and converting a city-wide STD program into a center for prevention studies.  

Dr. Elion has also been active in HCV treatment for over twenty years, both in clinical care and research. He has published on the pivotal trials of some of the new DAA agents for HCV, and worked closely to develop clinical and research protocols for HCV while at his past job, Whitman-Walker Health. He currently focuses on both mono- and dual- infected patients in his clinical work.

Dr. Sweet is Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita (UKSM-W) and has over 30 years in HIV care.  She is the medical director of the UKSM-W Ryan White HIV/AIDS Care Program (Parts B, C, D and F along with a HOPWA grant program). 

Dr. Sweet is certified as an HIV specialist by the American Academy of HIV Medicine, of which she is the past board Chair and a founding member. Dr. Sweet has travelled extensively nationally and internationally educating physicians about HIV care and treatment.