JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Historical Article
Physicians, AIDS, and occupational risk. Historic traditions and ethical obligations.
The profound reluctance of some physicians to care for patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome prompted us to review medical responses to other historic plagues. No consistent professional tradition emerged. Many physicians, including Galen and Sydenham, fled from patients with contagious epidemic diseases. ⋯ Civil and professional proscriptions against negligence or abandonment apply only to therapeutic relationships after they are contracted. However, a professional duty to treat human immunodeficiency virus-infected persons could be based on the understanding of medicine as a moral enterprise. In this context, treating human immunodeficiency virus-infected persons is a virtuous act, which meets both patients' and society's health needs and affirms the moral mission of health care.