A social worker is a college graduate with two years of postgraduate training and a Master’s of Social Work. Most states require these credentials for a license to practice social work. The actual graduate training is primarily devoted to counseling. In a hospital, a social worker’s primary role is to help people plan what to do when they leave the hospital. These plans, called discharge plans, include making decisions and arrangements for nursing home placement, home care, and outpatient care.      Good social workers also get involved with much more. They arrange for such special services as rehabilitation from intravenous drug use, treatment of alcoholism, psychiatric care, physical rehabilitation, and contact with community organizations. The job of the social worker usually ends when the person is discharged from the hospital.     Social workers can be found not only in hospitals but also in clinics, in private practice, in community organizations devoted to HIV infection, and working as case managers assigned to an individual person. All U.S. hospitals that receive federal funds must have social workers; this means essentially that all hospitals have social workers, since Medicare and Medicaid fund so much of this country’s health care in hospitals.     Information about social workers or case managers may be obtained through the hospital social worker, by referral from physicians, through contact with the local health department, or through the yellow pages of the telephone directory (listed under social workers, therapists, or counseling).*166\191\2*

What follows is a table of antibiotics, that is, the drugs taken against HIV, against opportunistic infections, and to prevent opportunistic infections. The table includes those antibiotics commonly taken by people with HIV infection, their generic and trade names, their doses, the conditions they treat, and their side effects.     People with HIV infection also take drugs to relieve many kinds of symptoms.     Costs of the Drugs-The costs of the drugs differ, depending on the pharmacy and whether they are generic or trade-name drugs. Shop around for the pharmacy that charges least for the drugs you need. And ask your physician to write prescriptions, when appropriate, for drugs under their generic rather than their trade names. Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole costs ten times less than the same drug under the name of Bactrim or Septra.*181\191\2*