A Travel Guide to your "Mini-Fellowship"

What you do -- and the order in which you do it -- is up to you. That said, here's a quick "travel guide" to the program. It's a recommended path, one of several you might take.

First, sign in to the mini-fellowship. It's important that you remember the name you use and sign in the same way every time you use the program. (Note that if you use different sign-on names, the program will keep track of progress for each of those names; using one name makes it easier to track your progress and get continuing education credit.)

The first time you use the program, there are a couple of disclaimer and credit screens. Click the mouse to hurry these along.

On your initial visit, we recommend you do the Orientation. It only takes a few minutes and it's a good overview.

Next, we recommend you go into Examining Room A or B. Here's how to decide:

Enter Room A if you want to learn about pre-test assessment and counseling (Visit 1), and assessment and possible treatment of early HIV infection (Visit 2). Enter Room B if you already know about these (or simply want to skip them for now). There, you'll meet your patient a few years after her initial diagnosis and workup, after she's begun to develop signs and symptoms of advancing disease.

In every encounter, you'll be asked to assess and counsel your patient. In some of the encounters, you'll also be asked (in a friendly way) to help make some decisions about her care. Note that if you decide to start with B, you'll be able to go back and pick up the Room A encounters later. Room A is recommended, if you have the time and interest.

At the end of each encounter, Dr. Bartlett will offer to discuss issues raised by that encounter. Topics and times will be given in advance, so you'll know what you're getting into. We recommend you say, "yes." John Bartlett is a clinician's clinician who's also a great teacher! (By the way, you can elect to get any case discussion at any time by going to the Conference Room.)

After completing your first encounter (Room A or Room B), head down the hall to the Learning Resources Room. Go through the door by clicking on it. When asked, take the Clinic Disc and replace it with the Learning Resources Disc. Push in the CD tray and wait a moment until you've entered the LR Room. Pick the Patient Interviews kiosk on the right. Select the Introduction and meet these remarkable people. Do one or two more interviews; they don't last more than a couple of minutes each.

Next, head over to the Lectures/Activities area (click the bottom of the interviews kiosk). The topics are arranged in order, with more theoretical or basic topics at the top and more clinical topics at the bottom of the kiosk. After you choose a topic, you can attend mini-lectures (click on the left) or learn in a more active way via the activities (click on the right). The lectures can be done in their entirety (10 to 20 minutes each) or by subtopic. The activities generally take from 2 to 4 minutes to complete. We recommend you do the lectures and/or activities for one or two topics, as desired.

You might then take a break, or head back to the clinic and do your second encounter with Laurie Matthews. If the latter, you'll need to shuffle the CD-ROMs as before.

To take a break, go to the Clinic Overview by clicking the icon that looks like a fire evacuation diagram. Click the EXIT sign in the right lower corner of the overview. Alternatively, you can quit the program by hitting the Alt+Q (Windows) or Command+Q (Macintosh) keys at the same time. The program will automatically save your location in the mini-fellowship. If you're in the middle of an encounter with your simulated patient, we recommend you complete the encounter before exiting. You'll be asked if you want to save your location in the encounter and can then exit the program if you decide to leave prematurely.

Take some time off.

When you come back to the program, sign in with the same name you used before. Click the Restore button to pick up where you left off the last time you were in your mini-fellowship.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you want, you can start from the beginning of the program at any time; if you select this, all record of your progress up to that point will be lost, so make sure you want to do this. If you simply want to show someone the program from the beginning, try signing in with a different name from the one you're using for your mini-fellowship.

FINAL NOTE: It can take from 2-8 hours to complete this program, depending on how much of it you decide to do. At a minimum, we recommend you do the three patient simulation encounters in Examining Room B, and a few of the interviews, mini-lectures, and activities in the Learning Resources Room. The second encounter in Room B is a particularly important part of the mini-fellowship!