"A Surgeon with AIDS"

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1990. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

"A Surgeon with AIDS"

Journal of the American Medical Association (12/26/90) Vol. 264, No. 24, P. 3147
Fulghum, James S.

Abstract: Although the July 25th issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association deals with several issues surrounding the AIDS crisis, including the question of a physician's responsibilty to disclose HIV infection, nowhere is the risk of neurologically impaired physicians discussed, writes Dr. James Fulghum of the North Carolina Neurological Society in a letter to the editor. Risk of direct HIV transmission to a patient may be low, but HIV-positive physicians with AIDS dementia complex must be considered impaired, he writes. HIV-infected persons in positions requiring fine motor skills pose a definite risk, considering neurological manifestations of AIDS are the initial symptom in as many as 30 percent of cases. Studies have shown HIV-infected persons can have moderately severe neurologic dysfunction without overt clinical signs and such impairment in doctors must be addressed--that the journal didn't is striking, he concludes.

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