Introduction

My name is Katlin Ceglar. I am 22 years old, and I graduate from UCF in December 2010. My degree will be in Health Science: Pre-Clinical Allied Track. Currently, I work at night as a certified nursing assistant at Leesburg Regional Medical Center. I help take care of a lot of patients who are HIV positive, and I hope that this class really helps me to learn how to identifty their needs better. As a high school student, I would go to an AIDS hospice in New Orleans for a week every summer. My heart really went out to these special people. One day, I want to become a physician's assistant so that I can continue to do mission trips where I can help those in need. I have been looking forward to this class because I know there is a lot to learn about HIV, and I really want to grasp what it is all about. I feel like I have been around it so much, but I really don't know that much about it. Finding out that a person inherits HIV every sixteen seconds was pretty astonishing to see. Honestly, HIV scares me. When I see patients who have AIDS or are HIV positive, I get really scared to go into their rooms. However, I do remember that they are people just like me. If I was to ever be HIV positive, I wouldn't want people taking care of me to be scared to go around me. When it comes to choosing a research topic, I have decided to learn about children who inherit HIV through their mothers and how it affects their entire lives. I would like to know how long they usually live and at what age does it usually start affecting their health.