Music City PrEP Clinic Celebrates Opening of East Side Location

Music City PrEP Clinic’s new location is surely the first sexual health clinic in the area that has a disco ball light fixture in it, flanked by a photograph of Dolly Parton and fresh flowers.  

On Saturday, the organization presented its Fatherland Fest to celebrate its grand opening at 1105 Fatherland St., complete with food trucks, a pop-up bar, glitter station, DJ and drag nurses. It’s all by design to encourage uptake of PrEP, an antiviral medication that can reduce the risk of HIV infection by up to 92 percent if taken regularly, and promote the organization’s other services, including testing and treatment for HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

It’s been a busy — and expensive — year for Music City PrEP. Earlier this year, the organization opened a new clinic at 501 28th Ave. N, which was previously listed at $3.75 million. The group bought the Fatherland location for $4.5 million in July 2020. The organization also had a smaller existing location at 615 Main St., which closed earlier this year. The new multi-use facility occupies the former Bill Martin’s grocery store space in East Nashville, in a neighborhood sometimes called Martin Corner.

What sets the newest clinic apart is the slate of adjoining businesses, including Avita Pharmacy, an LGBTQ community center called The Rod Bragg Rainbow Room (named for Music City PrEP’s late founder). Starting in early 2023, the PrEP clinic will also share its 12 rooms with a primary care clinic called Chosen Family Medicine. 

Darek Tanner, owner of the gay bar Canvas, also announced Saturday the business will close its doors at 1707 Church St. this fall and open its new location in a site adjoining Music City PrEP. 

The new PrEP clinic has a touch-screen monitor outside each room that keeps track of when patients are being seen, in an effort to speed up turnover and decrease wait time. Inside the rooms, a television will show videos to educate patients on sexual health matters and share biographies of the providers. There will be four clinicians in the clinic, with two dedicated providers added to start at Chosen Family. By hiring people from the hospitality field to front the business, MCP looks to provide a welcoming nature that starts at the front desk and over the phone.

“If they're scared, they're not going to come,” says Jason Butler, director of clinical operations. “If somebody's had a good experience, they're going to tell it to somebody else, and then somebody else may get on PrEP and protect them too, or get tested for something that they would have done normally, like 'Hey, really can take care of us here and it's not a scary place to go.' So I think we take the scary out of everything.”

Rob Birkhead, marketing director and office manager for Music City PrEP, wanted the design of the clinic to create an enjoyable experience (as much as a sexual health clinic can be) — inspired by Disney. 

“They say the better your sex life, the happier you are,” Birkhead says. “So we try to create happiness and a nonjudgmental, stigma-free environment. You can come here and talk openly to your provider and hopefully have a better sex life and a happier life. When you take the fear of HIV out of sex it makes a world of difference.”