On July 27th, 1990, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported that a Florida dentist had transmitted the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to five of his patients. These incidents raised many, previously unaddressed, questions regarding the ethical obligations of the HIV-infected health care worker (HCW), as well as the ethical responses to this difficult situation by patients and society. / This paper attempts to address these questions from an ethical viewpoint examining risk of harm and the individual duties of the HCW, the patient and society as well as through analysis of policies regarding HIV-infected HCWs. These policies were written by the federal U.S. and Canadian governments as well as state and provincial health departments and registrars of medical associations in the U.S. and Canada. / The policies were analyzed for five categories of requirements or recommendations with respect to: (1) notification of government and professional organizations or health care institutions and notification of patients of the HCW's HIV status, (2) mandatory HIV testing of HCWs, (3) work restriction for the HCW, (4) retrospective notification of the patient, and (5) monitoring compliance with the policy. / It was found that, in their practical interpretation, the policies left room for a wide spectrum of interpretation possibly due to poorly defined risk of individual invasive procedures. This indicates the need to accurately determine the risks of HIV transmission, from HCW to patient, during specific medical interventions. / It was concluded that certain policies, such as Health and Welfare Canada's Laboratory Centre for Disease Control (LCDC), policy and New York State Department of Health's policy allow enough flexibility to minimize risks of harm as well as to provide the possibility of a balance of the interests of all involved. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.23893 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Hayes, Ann M., 1964- |
| Contributors | Gilmore, Norbert (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Division of Experimental Medicine.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001481377, proquestno: MM12202, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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