The first thing you do when you arrive at the clinic is take a number and fill out a registration card.

A clerk will later call you by your number instead of your name to maintain confidentiality.

After you're registered, you'll be called by a clinic nurse for a private, confidential interview.

This is the time to frankly discuss everything that concerns your health, including your present symptoms and your reasons for coming to the clinic.

Okay, Debbie, what's bringing you to our clinic today?

Well, my boyfriend told me that maybe I should get a checkup, but I don't know.

I haven't had any symptoms or anything, so I just thought maybe I better come in for a checkup.

Was he here to be treated for something?

Yes.

Okay.

And you don't have any symptoms at all?

No.

And when was your last sexual contact?

Yesterday.

Okay.

No burning with urination, abdominal pains?

No Discharge, sores?

No.

Okay.

Debbie, now, what we're going to need to do today, first of all, is take a blood test.

Do you have to?

Okay, now, the reason we take a blood test is very important, because it's the only way that you can really accurately test for syphilis.

I just hate this.

Okay, well, it really won't be bad.

Okay, now, first of all, we'll just put this tourniquet on here.

And now, what I want you to do to help me is just make a real tight fist and then turn your head if you don't want to look.

Okay?

- I cant look.

Okay.

That should be all.

Okay.

Open your hand now.

We're all finished.

Almost done.

Now, the next step in having a venereal disease test is that we need to do a smear and culture.

Have you ever had an internal exam done before?

Yes, I have, okay.

It's just like having pap test done.

And the purpose of that is to test for gonorrhea, because that's about the only way that you can really determine gonorrhea.

You don't want them.

You're notified of the results within a few days.

If they show you have syphilis or gonorrhea, you come back to the clinic and you're treated with penicillin or other antibiotics.

It may take a few days or a few weeks to clear up, depending on how long you waited before seeking medical help.

You're cured at this point, but the epidemic rages on until all of your sexual contacts are tested and treated.

Dont you feel an obligation to your sexual contacts to make sure that they're not, going to have any of these, crippling arthritis or sterility or, you know, any of these other nasty things like, give me their name and I'll contact them.

They'll never find out from me.

Will you tell them I told you their name?

No, no way at all.

No way.

I'll just tell them that, you know, like they have been in contact we think to somebody that has been infected and they require, a checkup and possibly some treatment.

Well there's one guy but I don't know his last name.

Now, of course, everything you've seen here has been a simulation acted out by people who work in the county health department's VD clinic program.

But hundreds of real people with real VD problems go through this same program every month.

People like Mary, well-educated, making good money and a respected profession.

To Mary, VD was something other people had.

Well, I didn't suspect anything.

My, my ex-husband told me, that he'd been seeing other people, and he contacted VD.

And so for me to go down to the clinic, because he had been down there and he found it was confirmed that he had it.

So, I just went right down to the clinic.

What was your reaction when you heard?

Well, some what of a trauma because I, you know, I knew he was going and seeing other people because I was seeing other people at the time, too.

And, even though we were married, which is not very traditional kind of case, we were seeing other people.

We knew that, you know, it would be a possibility that we could get VD, but it's sort of a shock to you at first.

It's kind of a thing that you don't really believe it's happening to you.

You get like an anxiety kind of pit of the stomach kind of sickness and you just start worrying about it and like, you know, like, how much damage did it do?

You start thinking and you, you just start worrying and like, you know what?

What kind of thing are you going to go through at the clinic?

Because, you know, you've never been there before.

So it's a first kind of situation and new situations are sort of somewhat traumatic anyway.

So I went down and I sat in the waiting room till I was called, and I told them and they had already know that I was coming in because my husband had mentioned to them that he had contacted me.

And as soon as I came in, they, they, they started the treatment, which was very easily just consisted of pills at that time.

But there are other kinds of means of treating it there.

You can get two penicillin shots or tetracycline if you're allergic to any other kind of, antibiotic.

But I was just on pills for about a week, and after a week of being off pills, I went back and got retested and the testing procedures seemed to be quite thorough from what I've read on it since I've had it.

And, from what I understand, they are they they do a smear and a culture and a blood test and it, completely covers all the areas of VD, syphilis and gonorrhea.

So after the treatment, I've been going back quite a few times.

Just just for checks, just to, put my mind at ease that I don't have it.

And I'm not spreading it around.