Doctor Had AIDS

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2004-01-24 04:29am

She operated on more than 2600 children Are doctors hipocrites when AIDS is involved,an ordinary citizen who has it is required to tell but a doctor can keep it secret.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-01-24 04:38am

This is why the Engineering Oath is superior to the medical Hippocratic Oath. While the Hippocratic Oath only instructs doctors to do no harm, the Engineering Oath requires proactive disclosure of risk to the public once you become aware of it, even if it is someone else's fault. It's not enough to simply do no harm; you have a duty to reduce the public risk. Simply knowing of a risk to public safety and failing to act against it is a violation of engineering ethics.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-01-24 05:06am

Amen.

InnerBrat · Post by **InnerBrat** » 2004-01-24 07:15am

Montcalm wrote: Are doctors hipocrites when AIDS is involved,an ordinary citizen who has it is required to tell but a doctor can keep it secret.

Actaully she did tell the board she was supposed to.

Di Lorenzo revealed her HIV status to her supervisor in 1991 and a committee determined what surgeries she could perform.

the risk of passing on the virus is extremely small. She undoubtably saved mroe lives then she endangered. (not that I believe lives can be exchanged like that, but I think the fault lies with the administration, not with her)

Post by **Broomstick** » 2004-01-24 09:36am

As usual, new stories don't tell the whole story.

I'd have to ask - were proper procedures to insure sterility followed? What procedures are high risk vs. low risk? Did she engage in any particularly risky procedures? They said "general surgery" - what, exactly, does that mean? If she's removing warts and hangnails there really may be an extremely minor risk here.

Medical personal have a higher risk of HIV infection than the general public for the simple reason they're around it more. Back when I worked in a clinic we not only had active AIDs walking around, but also TB, syphillis, strep, staph, various strains of hepatitus, and exotic tropical parasites being shit into the toilets. Doctors, nurses, and other folks in hospital settings do sometimes pick up infections from the patients. It's an occupational hazard.

So... what to do with a doctor with an infection? Particularly with an incurable infection? Should they be removed from all direct patient contact? Should they be allowed to continue practice if adequate precautions to protect the patients are in place (this leaves the question of what's "adequate")

I remember a disucssion about HIV and blood donation I had with someone back in the '80s, before there was really any effective treatments for the disease. The hypothetical situation was that you've just been in a car accident and you will die if you don't get a blood transfusion. Problem is, you don't know if the blood you're getting has HIV or not. Would you prefer to die now or have the blood transfusion?

To me - hey, yeah, if I'm going to die now take the blood transfusion and at least I'll have some potentially good years before the AIDs kills me. I was surprised at how many folks I knew said no, they'd rather die immediately than catch HIV. People are funny about the disease - too many view it as a moral judgement rather than a virus.

Nor is this limited solely to disucssions of HIV or Hep - a doctor with active herpes could be deadly to patients with compromised immune systems.

Really, the same infection-control procedures should be in place regardless of wether doctor, patient, both or neither have HIV or any other blood-borne disorder. Not only do such precautions minimize the risk of HIV, they are also effective barriers to a lot of other diseases you don't want to be passing back and forth.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-01-24 12:44pm

A HIV carrying medical worker must disclose their condition, IIRC. Though the transmission risks are low to nil depending on their work, it is best that the medical council knows about it. The problems arise when the public finds out thanks to snooping media reporters and then all hell breaks loose much the same way it would if the word "nuclear" was uttered in a Green convention.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2004-01-24 05:53pm

The HIV transmission risc in this case is close to NIL.

Damn a straight intercourse has a infection rate of 0.1% or so. There is a much bigger risk in dying of tuberolosies(sp?= but it's a non glamirous dicease so it don't get the headlines.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-01-24 06:03pm

so long as the doctor has no open wounds on them when they operate, you're as likely to get AIDS as you are to get cancer from casual contact. it's not as though you can catch aids through the air or by touch. hell, AIDs can't even be transmitted through saliva if i remember right.

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2004-01-24 08:38pm

The article said she did tell her supervisor but nothing went further. The supervisor was probably trying to protect her.

Depending on the type of surgery she does, the worst case scenario is she somehow cuts herself and starts bleeding into the open wound of the patient. Wasn't there an HIV positive character on the show ER?

While I agree its necessary to protect the patients first. I sympathize with her position as well. She'll be giving up at least eight years of sleepless nights and hardwork for god knows what else. It's a very human thing to be scared. BUT she did inform her supervisor, so she did the right thing.. we just don't know why the information didn't go any further than that

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2004-01-24 10:23pm

I don't see much of a risk there; generally, the patient's bodily fluids end up on the doctor, not the other way around.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-01-24 11:49pm

Andrew J. wrote:I don't see much of a risk there; generally, the patient's bodily fluids end up on the doctor, not the other way around.

So if you were going to be opened up for surgery tomorrow and you had a choice of a surgeon with AIDS and one without, you would honestly say "I don't care which one has his hands inside my innards?"

Queeb Salaron · Post by **Queeb Salaron** » 2004-01-24 11:53pm

Faram wrote:Damn a straight intercourse has a infection rate of 0.1% or so. There is a much bigger risk in dying of tuberolosies(sp?= but it's a non glamirous dicease so it don't get the headlines.

I really hope you didn't just call AIDS "glamorous." Because that would be worthy of a slap to the head.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-01-24 11:57pm

Broomstick wrote:I'd have to ask - were proper procedures to insure sterility followed? What procedures are high risk vs. low risk? Did she engage in any particularly risky procedures? They said "general surgery" - what, exactly, does that mean? If she's removing warts and hangnails there really may be an extremely minor risk here.

Risk is normally defined as the probability of a problem multiplied by the magnitude of the problem. Even a low-probability even can be considered a more serious risk if the outcome happens to be the slow, horrible death of a child. And she worked on infants.

Post by **haas mark** » 2004-01-25 12:04am

Queeb Salaron wrote:
Faram wrote:Damn a straight intercourse has a infection rate of 0.1% or so. There is a much bigger risk in dying of tuberolosies(sp?= but it's a non glamirous dicease so it don't get the headlines.
I really hope you didn't just call AIDS "glamorous." Because that would be worthy of a slap to the head.

In this case, "glamorous" is meant to be "noteworthy." It's a glamorous disease because it's epidemic and it's something that can be (and has been) blown to proportions that it need not be.

~ver

Post by **Zaia** » 2004-01-25 01:04am

General surgeons mostly do superficial surgeries, not major ones. Their expertise is in knowing a bit about a lot of different areas of the body, so once something gets serious, they send you on to a specialist who makes a hell of a lot more money than they do. On the medical payscale, general surgeons are probably only higher than PCPs and family doctors, because they don't have a lot of liability, I guess. And there are billions and billions of them.

Anyway, my point is that most of the time the one with his/her hands inside you yanking at your goopy innards isn't a general surgeon. General surgeons more often do stuff like removing your tonsils or that mole on your back.

Remember how I used to do medical research? Yeah. I know this stuff.

Andrew J. · Post by **Andrew J.** » 2004-01-25 12:25pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Andrew J. wrote:I don't see much of a risk there; generally, the patient's bodily fluids end up on the doctor, not the other way around.
So if you were going to be opened up for surgery tomorrow and you had a choice of a surgeon with AIDS and one without, you would honestly say "I don't care which one has his hands inside my innards?"

No. They wear gloves, don't they?

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2004-01-25 01:02pm

Andrew J. wrote:
Darth Wong wrote: So if you were going to be opened up for surgery tomorrow and you had a choice of a surgeon with AIDS and one without, you would honestly say "I don't care which one has his hands inside my innards?"
No. They wear gloves, don't they?

If you have a 0% chance of contracting AIDS from a surgeon not infected with AIDS, and a small but nonzero chance of being infected by the one with AIDS, you would take that unnecessary risk?

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2004-01-27 10:21am

Update on the story.

They allegedly found where she`s supposed to have contracted it,apparently it was from an American baby who needed medical attention and they did not wear gloves at the time.

looks like a blame the US thing now.

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2004-01-27 10:58am

If the Doctor didn't wear gloves while operating on an American baby, it's America's fault? What, did America forbid her from using gloves?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-01-27 11:38am

if the Doctor didn't wear gloves while working on an American baby, I don't fucking trust her to touch my baby. My original statement on this issue stands; she should not have been allowed to work with anyone's child.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2004-01-27 11:44am

Darth Wong wrote:if the Doctor didn't wear gloves while working on an American baby, I don't fucking trust her to touch my baby. My original statement on this issue stands; she should not have been allowed to work with anyone's child.

I think the implication there was that it was a rush job, before gloves were absolutely required by law for every single operation.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-01-27 11:45am

I don't give a fuck! If some doctor had AIDS and worked on my baby without telling me, I'd want blood. You say you wouldn't care because you don't fucking have any kids.

The Aliens · Post by **The Aliens** » 2004-01-27 11:54am

MW, my point was that it's not a 'blame America' situation, because it's the Doctor's fault she didn't wear gloves, not the American baby's.

Darth Servo · Post by **Darth Servo** » 2004-01-27 01:08pm

Andrew J. wrote:No. They wear gloves, don't they?

Gloves won't do squat if the doctor accidentally cuts him/herself with the scalpel.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2004-01-27 01:40pm

Darth Servo wrote:
Andrew J. wrote:No. They wear gloves, don't they?
Gloves won't do squat if the doctor accidentally cuts him/herself with the scalpel.

gloves in this case really don't matter all that much, as they are for the doctors protection NOT the patients.

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