Many Medical Residents Do Not Want to Care for AIDS Patients, UC San Francisco Study Finds

sEVI
University of California, San Francisco
513 Parnassus Avenue Room S0l
Carol Fox, News Director San Francisco, CA 9413 -Source: Alice Trinki [phone] (FAX[phone]
SIXTH INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE ON AIDS
EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE
AT TIME OF PRESENTATION
SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1990
1:20 PM, PDT
MANY MEDICAL RESIDENTS DO NOT WANT TO CARE FOR AIDS PATIENTS,
UC SAN FRANCISCO STUDY FINDS
SAN FRANCISCO -- Two thirds of the medical residents in a recent survey indicated
they were not planning to treat AIDS patients when they started their own practices and
half of them would not want to be known in their communities as having patients with AIDS,
a UC San Francisco researcher has reported.
"We found that there were three major reasons that affected whether or not a resident
had plans to include caring for AIDS patients in their medical practice," said Molly
Cooke, MD, UC San Francisco associate professor of clinical medicine. "There was the
sense of futility some feel in treating patients with a disease they cannot cure. There
were those who were prejudiced against patients most likely to get the disease, gays and
IV drug users. And there was the resident's personal perception of duty, whether or not
he or she felt a physician has a professional and ethical responsibility to care for all
patients, including those with AIDS."
Cooke presented the survey results here today at the Sixth International Conference
on AIDS, sponsored by UC San Francisco.
One of the more dramatic results of the survey was in response to a question asking
whether residents would perform life-saving medical treatment on a person with HIV
infection if there were specific risks to the resident of becoming infected. If the risk
were one in 100, three quarters (74%) of the residents would not give life-saving
treatment. If the risk were one in 100,000, five percent would still withhold treatment.
"This is clearly an important issue for the medical profession," Cooke said. "We
need to look at what the profession is really about. What are ourT P
fundamental obligations to the sick. We must manage our human

responses to issues like AIDS in a way that care isn't compromised.
What does it mean when our young medical trainees say they don't want
to have to.deal with one of the most urgent health problems of this
-morePRS:atresident12vFE'
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