I think that's the mobile unit back there. Oh, the white one? Yup. Oh wow, that's cool. How'd you see that? Because I thought you embedded with all these cars around? It's like pattern recognition, yeah. Right in the community. Mobile career center, interesting. Yeah, I wonder what they do for the health department. Well, thanks again for coming up to Baltimore. I hope you have a great time meeting these health workers. And it has been great to catch up with you. This has been fantastic. I wish we had more time. I wish the route was even longer. That was what I- This would have been great. All right well good luck today. Thank you. I'm looking forward to this. Okay, bye-bye. Thank you, thank you Dr. Sharstein. So I think this is Derek. Hey, how are you doing today? Hey how are you? Okay. Can't complain. Derek Moten? Yep, De Moten. All right. Ooh, Mayor Shaw Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, nice to meet you. This is exciting. Yeah. I know, thank you for having me. No this is great. So tell me where are you coming from. What is this thing? Um, this is our mobile unit. What we use here is the Baltimore County, as you can see it says mobile career center, but it also utilizes double as a HIV mobile testing unit. We have five testing areas all throughout Baltimore County. This allows us to actually get into the streets and get into areas that we might not have a clinic near. So you know we're able to, you know, go into pharmacy parking lots were able to, you know, any venue that will accept us and allow us, you know, to come in and do some HIV testing. So before you got in the car I couldn't find you. And I was saying that you're a disease investigator with Baltimore County so I said you were stealth mode. Oh yeah. Oh, yea. So I'm sure you got to be stealth so people can't see what you're doing sometimes so you can do what you need to do in order to take care of the health of this community. Definitely, definitely, confidentiality is one of our biggest things. We try to blend in with the community as much as possible. On a typical day if I'm going out in the field, you know, I wouldn't be wearing, you know, my Baltimore County logo shirt but we try to dress like everyday citizens. Yeah but you know you want to be able to go into a community and not have the individual know why you're there. That way, you know, the client that you're working with the confidential level was met to their, you know, extremes because sometimes the information that we deal with is a little sensitive. Well we're going to talk more about that. Are you buckled in? Buckled in. You want, we got some water for you. How's that? Look at that. Appreciate that. Are you ready to go? I'm ready to go. All right let's do this. So let me ask you this: How would you handle, let's say your, you know, your investigation reveals residents but you can't quite get to that person at the residence but try to pick a spot here where let's say you've got over here a business, like right there on the left, right? So right there. How would you handle an investigation somewhere like that where they're, you just can't do it in the home so you've got to go into they're place of work? I am available to meet the client wherever their needs are. One of our policies of Baltimore County is no wrong door. So you know there's nothing that we will do, you know, that's out of the scope. I've definitely gone to, you know, a patient's job and they've had a lunch room and they wanted to talk to me or, you know, if they want to meet me at a McDonald's and you know grab a cup of coffee and just have a conversation, you know. I meet the clients wherever they need because you also have to remember not a lot of kinds of transportation as well. That's a good point. So even though we're not allowed to drive them in our personal cars, you know, we have arrangements for transportation. We do have, you know, cabs that are available to us. We have bus tokens that are available to us but anything the Baltimore County resident needs, you know, we try to get there and as well as keep it confidential as possible. So this, where are we right now in Baltimore County? Currently, we are on the west side of our Baltimore County. Kind of in the Windsor Mills area. You have a couple high schools within about a five mile radius around here; Milford Middle, Randallstown High School, Woodlawn High School. How did you get into- What made Derrick do this? Like one day you don't just wake up, oh okay, I'm going to be, or maybe you do. I don't know. But is this where you say okay, today I'm going to, I've decided to be a disease, you know, investigator. I've always had a strong passion for helping the community and specifically helping with the youth. I have a background in psychology and minor in conflict resolution and I'm currently, I'm seeking... Ooh, conflict resolution. Yes, so I had to get my minor in conflict resolution. So I used to help freshmen in dorms figure out situations of whom you get to. Do you work with seven-year olds, three-year olds and four-month olds, just to kind of put it out there. I've got three kids and there's conflict every single afternoon. So I try to say, if you could work with that you know I think we have a little. I can give you some advice here and there. Place for you in Texas, deep in the heart of Texas, right. I can definitely help you out you know with the adolescents. That's great. Here's the Windsor Mill that you were talking about middle school. Yep, Windsor Mill Middle School. Yeah. Oh, that's great. And look kids are out, they're, you know, playing and doing all sorts of things. And as I said before you know Maryland weather's so funny yesterday was about 65 degrees out and the sun was shining. You know today it's a little less sun but you know the kids are still out enjoying the weather. Still out, yeah. Absolutely. So you were saying conflict resolution. I didn't mean to. Yeah. So you know with that I kind of you know saw an open position for Baltimore County. I first started as an HIV educator, essentially what I did with that is I actually paired a lot more with the mobile unit. And as I said before, you know, we spent a lot of time offering HIV testing and HIV 101 presentations to essentially anyone that wanted to hear, you know, I'm all about a "reach one, teach one" mentality. Even in a group of two, if one individual gets that message they can go back out into the community and dispel the myths of HIV. They can suggest testing to people within their social network. So I started doing that and then when you find a positive, as far an HIV educator, the next step is to turn it over to the disease investigative specialists which is what I do now. And you know they're are the individuals that, you know, investigate the case make sure the individual is linked to care, elicit partners, and further you know prevent the spread through to Baltimore County residents. So I started thinking, you know, that sounds like a cool idea, you know, maybe I want to get into something like that. All this is-- So that's an incredible amount of work. How would you, how do you do that? It's not work when you love what you do. And you know you got to find a passion for this, and I truly believe everyone that I work with and people that are on my team, we truly have a passion for the outreach work that we do with the community and the way that, you know, we just love our community. The majority of my team are all you know Baltimore County residents most born and raised in Baltimore City and/or Baltimore County. So you know when you wake up every day and love what you do it's really not work. Right. Yeah. Now, I can imagine. So you love what you do. You're dedicated to what you do. And yet probably a lot of folks in Baltimore County, except for the ones that you reach out to, don't even know what you do. And that's the best part. You're in stealth mode, I like it. That's the best part. I like it. How would you want a community to know what you do and why what you do is important? I would want the community to know what we do just so they know that someone out there, you know, essentially has their back. You know, I tell you Derrick, Baltimore County should be proud to have you. I know most people, because of your stealth mode, don't know that you exist or do what you do. But Baltimore County should be proud of having people just like you. Thank you for everything you do. I know oftentimes it's a thankless job. So where are we? We're at the Randallstown Community Center. Oh this is great and I've really really enjoyed this. I hope I hope you've had a good time explaining all you do and I'm glad that you got out of stealth mode so I can actually, you were no longer invisible, so I could catch you. Not a problem at all. Appreciate your time today. Thank you so much, all right. You have a great day. Keep doing what you do. You do the same.
