Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!usc!henry.jpl.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ucla-cs!skaron@eagle.wesleyan.edu From: skaron@eagle.wesleyan.edu Newsgroups: sci.med.aids Subject: Re: 60 Mins seg. (Dr. Day..) Message-ID: <27611@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> Date: 1 Oct 89 20:01:26 GMT References: <27503@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU> Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU Lines: 62 Approved: aids@cs.ucla.edu Archive-number: 1280 In article <27503@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, Tom.Mickus@f440.n250.z1.fidonet.org ( Tom Mickus) writes: > > Dr. Day (a woman), is chief of a surgical dept. in a San Francisco > hospital. Due to her perceived threat of receiving AIDs or the HIV virus > while practicing surgery, she has decided to pack it in, and retreat to a > safer working enviroment. She is upset over the way the risk of infection > among medical personnel is downplayed.... > > She does raise some interesting points though, and ones that must be > addressed and faced up to. For example, she cites the fact that any incoming > patient can be tested to see if they have any of the prevalent (or once > prevalent) infectious diseases, everyone except for the AIDs or HIV virus. > WHY IS THAT? > Yes, there are legitimate fears over such information being abused, > and things such as job discrimination resulting, however we have to see > that as a lesser evil to the one whereby ou healthcare workers may have a > death sentence invoked upon them simply because they weren't alerted to the > risks coming from a particular patient who was infected. Let us not lose > sight of what's happening. We are dealing with a disease with no known cure > (and few treatments) which in a short span of years, causes death. We are > also talking about a virus...which means when we speak of transmission, you > can never say .. an action with an infected person is _100%_ safe. However, > neither should we act paranoid or irrational in face of this killer, but we > musn't delude ourselves. Facts are facts, and we have to own up to them, > regardless of what kind of impact it may or may have on particular social > groups. > I agree that these health workers are at risk when treating infected patients. However, will the knowledge that they are treating infected patients reduce their risk? I believe it shouldn't. Shouldn't these people be cautious of their chance of contracting any disease no matter who they treat, infected patient or not? It bothers me to think that these workers (although doing a nessecary and important job) would be more cautious about themselves in some situations involving the entering of a human body than in other similar situations. It seems that by giving health workers knowledge about hiv infected patients would result in Health workers, doctors and nurses not giving the same amount of care that they would if these people were not infected. In the case of doctors this leads to a breaking of their hippocratic oaths, and in the case of the other health workers raises serious questions of their true intentions in the field. If they are unsure of a patient then they should take all precautions deemed neccesary, and not be thinking "Gee this person doesn't have HIV therefore it's ok if I get pricked by a needle." Yes there are risks but Health professionals should not be in the field if they are unwilling to take risks to help save other people (and no just because people have HIV does not mean that their life is not worth improving due to the problem of giving it to health workers). It is my opinion that Dr. Day is not fufilling her duties as a doctor if she is not willing to help someone that may put her in some risk, and therefore bid her a fare goodbye from her profession. Any other comments would be listened to with an open mind. SKARON@eagle.wes.edu or SKARON@wesleyan.bitnet (Steven L. Karon)