AEGiS-APPJ: Military Physicians' Legal and Ethical Obligations to Third Parties When Treating Servicepersons Infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1987. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Military Physicians' Legal and Ethical Obligations to Third Parties When Treating Servicepersons Infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus

AIDS & Public Policy Journal 2, no. 3 (Summer-Fall 1987): 46-62
Edmund G. Howe

When military physicians treat servicepersons infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), two ethical dilemmas are particularly difficult to resolve: What is the physician to do when these patients indicate that they intend to engage in sexual practices that may endanger others? What action should the physician take when these patients are unwilling to tell their sexual partners that they are infected? Military physicians' options for dealing with these situations differ somewhat from those available to civilian doctors. Military physicians function, for example, under military law and do not have the requirements for doctor/patient confidentiality common in most states. Ethically, they also have direct obligations to the military and to large numbers of servicepersons that sometimes override their obligations to individual patients. This article will analyze legal and ethical aspects of the military physician's options in the two situations just described.
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