In the article “To regain jobs, HIV-infected health workers seek rules change” (Main news, Sept. 28), Dr. Paul Scoles, a surgeon who has the AIDS virus, was quoted as saying that surgery “was my entire world . . . and now it’s no part of my world at all.”
It shouldn’t be.
Surgeons with AIDS or HIV (or any other infectious disease for that matter) have no right operating on people, even with the utmost precautions. The threat of spreading the disease is too great. Ms. Adams also said that under federal health guidelines, doctors “must reveal their HIV status to patients” and that “translates into the end of a career.”
Of course it does. The only other alternative would be to let AIDS-infected doctors perform surgery on unwitting patients, possibly ruining their lives as well.
I do, however, sympathize with Dr. Scoles and others in his position, and I am not saying that they can’t consult patients and oversee surgeries. But when it comes to actually cutting into someone, they should have no part in it (unless, of course, given permission by the patient).
