Meet who’s behind Serving With Two Hands
Hi! I’m Deborah Borne.
I stand for a world where no one lives or dies in shame.
I stand for a healing and caring system where providers care for themselves as a central component of their care for others.
I have worked in homeless, addiction, and HIV services for the last 30 years as a social worker, researcher, educator, administrator, Medical Director, and physician. My clinical work is with people who live on the street and access syringe exchanges, specifically women, people living with HIV, and transitional age youth. I oversee Health Policy for People Experiencing Homelessness and Vulnerable Populations in the City and County of San Francisco. Since COVID-19, I have served various roles including COVID Command Center Operations Deputy for Prevention, and Deputy of Equity and Community Health.
I served as Medical Director at the Tom Waddell Health Center, a FQHC Health Care for the Homeless Clinic, for 5 years before moving into broader reaching program and policy development for San Francisco County. My work has included oversight of medical integration into the city-funded behavioral health centers; Shelter Health legislation and Homeless Planning; HIV/STD prevention and treatment quality efforts; integration of CDC and Ryan White-funded HIV testing, linkage, and engagement programs; and medical coordination of homeless and community-based services. I have been a trainer for the National Health Care for the Homeless Council in Motivational Interviewing, Trauma-Informed Care, STD/HIV Care, Quality Improvement, Shelter Health Care, and Outreach.
My current clinical and program work is focused on improving health outcomes for vulnerable communities including complex and high utilizers, people with medical trauma and PTSD, as well as establishing integrated team-based mobile primary care. I developed the provider component of the Zuckerberg General Hospital Social Medicine Program. I support the San Francisco’s drug user health initiative, as well as reproductive health and disease prevention for people experiencing homelessness and other vulnerable communities.
I am trained as an herbalist, therapeutic yoga instructor, Compassionate Inquiry, and Eden energy medicine practitioner. I use these modalities in my medical and Tarot work.
When not working or reading the Tarot, you can find me walking on the beach, playing with my dog Poco, driving my teenager to circus practice, or knitting.
More about Deb:
https://www.sfexaminer.com/faces/how-helping-the-homeless-with-covid-helps-all-of-san-francisco/
Featured in a podcast:
https://connectingparadigms.org/blog/podcast/spiritual-health-with-dr-deborah-borne/
https://connectingparadigms.org/blog/podcast/deb-borne-joins-the-show-to-talk-contemplation/