News Archive
IU McKinney Law Adjunct Professor Works on Behalf of Clients with HIV
04/20/2018
The work that IU McKinney Law Adjunct Professor Tracy Gunter does with LifeCare at IU Health Methodist Hospital is in the news.
Clients come to LifeCare from all walks of life – all genders, sexual orientations, and ethnicities. Today the program serves about 1,300 clients spanning the ages of 18 to 80, making it the largest HIV medical provider in the state, according to an online story.
Gunter, who is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Division of Forensic Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University School of Medicine, teaches Neuroscience and Law at IU McKinney. She is also a board certified forensic psychiatrist who first worked with HIV patients in the early ‘90s during an internship in her home state of South Carolina.
She recently became part of an in-house team at LifeCare, which continues to expand its focus and outreach to clients. The program recently received a $1.1 million grant from the Indiana State Department of Health to allow for expanded behavioral health treatment, outpatient substance abuse treatment and medical case management.
“When I learned of the opportunity to work with LifeCare, it was exciting because the disease that was a death sentence is now managed as a chronic disease. LifeCare patients are referred to mental health for various reasons ranging from addictions to anxiety and mood problems to crisis counseling,” Gunter said.
“This clinic serves a lot of people who have had a lot of trauma. I’ve learned that you listen more than you talk and you stay willing to meet them where they are as opposed to demanding they meet you where you are,” said Gunter. “So far, clients have said, ‘I’m glad you are here.’ When they want to know what they should say or how they should come in I tell them ‘until you show up, until you trust us enough to see you good or bad, it will be hard to get started.’ Having the willingness to listen to the truth of their life experience goes a long way.”
That truth frequently involves a number of social problems and Dr. Gunter sees great potential for medical-legal partnerships in this setting. She looks forward to working with Indiana Legal Services, which began providing services to LifeCare on a monthly basis in 2017.
