Doctor Refuses To Treat HIV-Positives

someone please explain this one to me

freaking asshole doctors

http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/11/111104hivDr.htm

A complaint has been filed accusing the Lasik Vision Institute and its Glendale, Colo.-based doctor, Paul Cutarelli, of refusing to perform eye surgery on two HIV-positive patients.

The complaint, to the Colorado Civil Rights Division, was made by the Legal Center for People with Disabilities, a Colorado-based not-for-profit advocacy group on behalf of the two patients.

According to the complaint an employee at the Lasik Vision Institute office in 2003 told a man who was seeking vision correction surgery that Cutarelli would not operate on the man after he informed her that he was HIV-positive, Eric Maxfield, an attorney at the Legal Center tells the Denver Post.

I treat HIV all day for YEARS. I have a relatively high-risk population in my practice and am around all sharp objects all day.

Even with 3 needls stick-equivalents over the years, no seroconversion.

Schmuck.

Schmuck and Idiot

an optometrist who had a policy of not treating HIV positive people.

He lost his license.

Some people do not belong in healthcare. If your version of religion prevents you from loving your neighbor unconditionally and giving the care he deserves, perhaps you need to go into another profession.

How about people with hepatitus?

Both of those are SO much more contagious than HIV.

He's a bigot, not an idiot.

I do this for a living...he's not a bigot - sight unseen. what he is is afraid, inappropriately, because he's a wuss.

These people dont' care about the patient, they care only about themselves. But it's a stupid kind of narcissism and self-involvement - you have to assume that 60% or more of those with HIV are lying or are carriers unknowingly. It's OK - we go thru this everyday.

He may, howevewr, be a bigot, but this isn't necessarily the indication that he is.

It is a much smaller virus and can live outside the body for a lot longer.

I operate almost everyday, and Hep C is MUCH more dangerous. My partner was stuck with a scalpel today and was telling me about the incident. He mentioned going through the chart to check for hepatitis, never mentioned HIV. I know of at least 3 trauma surgeons who have contacted Hep C, I know of no health care professional who has contacted HIV, despite multiple incidents of exposure.

this isnt a necessary life saving surgery as such the doctor has every right to decide which patients he will or will not take.

That being said is it even possible for HIV to be transmitted from eye fluids?

I watched a friend get LASIK once and saw on the screen when they cut his lens or whatever. I assume they wash that too by the way.

Neither is gall bladder surgery, when the patient is just having chronic pain, or a peripheral bypass for a patient with claudication. Yes, HIV could be transmitted with eye fluid, but surgeons generally practice universal precautions, avoid all contact with body fluids regardless of risk. Doctors take an oath to heal and relive human suffering. Eye surgery may not be life saving, and about half of the surgery I do is not, but it improves peoples lives. To deny this based on HIV status is unconscionable.

"this isnt a necessary life saving surgery as such the doctor has every right to decide which patients he will or will not take."

Physicians are subject to various constraints on their freedom to accept or reject patients.

For starters, they are subject to the same constraints as any other provider of services to the public, where there is anti-discrimination legislation in place. Presumably, they could not legally refuse to treat someone because of his/her race, religion or sex, for instance.

They are also subject to professional ethics requirements that are administered and enforced by professional governing bodies. Up here, we commonly call them "colleges", e.g. the "Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons"; I think that down there you tend to call them "licensing boards". Essentially, governance of the profession is handled by the profession itself: "self-governing profession".

On the first point, refusing to provide services to a person who is HIV positive might be unlawful discrimination under local law. It likely would be here, since being HIV-positive is regarded as a "handicap" (in the rather archaic language of the Ontario Human Rights Code) and is therefore, as the Human Rights Commission interprets that legislation, a prohibited ground of discrimination:
http://www.ohrc.on.ca/english/publications/hiv-aids-policy.shtml
-- and in fact the Commission has a policy of expediting complaints filed by persons who self-identify as HIV-positive. (That policy statement is well worth reading, for anyone with a deeper interest in the issues.)

On the second point, professionals like doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, engineers and architects are given privileges by society, and have duties in return.

They have the privilege of having the exclusive legal authority to do certain things in return for payment: perform surgery, represent clients in court, dispense drugs, design certain structures. When the profession limits admission to the practice of the profession, as they all do, its members benefit financially, in particular. If we could all perform surgery, it would be a lot cheaper, and doctors would be driving smaller cars.

A refusal to treat an HIV-positive patient might well be regarded as a breach of medical ethics, one common basic tenet of which is that the patient's interests are paramount in almost all situations.

But hell, if pharmacists are to be permitted to refuse to dispense hormonal contraception to women, when the only risk they are taking is the risk of falling down in their duty to oppress women ...

This is stepping carefully around the Hippocratic Oath, imo. I don't need to debate whether or not restoring, or just improving, eyesight is "healing the sick."

Picking and choosing what patients you will treat, or not treat, is beyond unethical and immoral.

Your statement "Fucking asshole doctors" suggests that, in general doctors are assholes. While it may be true that a majority of doctors are republicans, so by definition, they are assholes. You should avoid blanket condemnation, after all, while Frist is an asshole, Dean is not.

As a doctor myself I think your outrage is justified, and unfortunately, it is not isolated. I have practiced in NYC, Pittsburgh, and Tucson. In NYC HIV is rampant, and those in health care generally deal with it. However, in areas where HIV is much less common patients are often dumped from doctor to doctor out of ignorance, fear, or bigotry. I have a moderate number of HIV patients and generally go out of my way to take care of them. I have the experience because of where I trained, and don't think anyone should be neglected. Most have been dumped by other doctors in town, most likely because they are HIV positive or homosexual. It is a disgrace to the profession and this particular physician should be hung up by his toe nails.

See if you can get his license to practice revoked. He has no cause to refuse to do laser eye surgery because someone has AIDS.

because they might have the "gay" disease.

(This is sarcasm about their 1970s thinking.)

Not to discuss the issues pro or con ...

but to make an observation ...

I bet that the doctors who treated a lot of 'gulf war syndrome' vets and then came down with the 'gulf war syndrome' illness themselves wouldn't do it over again

I suspect that in a small doctors office with many recently exposed to such pesticides/solvents/poisons ... neurotoxins ... such as 2-butoxyethanol www.valdezlink.com/same.htm ... were getting exposed 2nd-handedly:

the respiration of the victim would fill the office & get into the eyes of the doctor.

The second hand exposure to 2-butoxyethanol type chemicals is unbelievable.

On the other hand, if the doctor was wearing swimming goggles once his/her eyes started burning, maybe there would have been no second hand exposure.

That's what I think, after a study of the chemical & several groups which I suspect to be victim of it www.valdezlink.com/cfid_share.htm Half way down this page you will find some other examples of 2nd hand solvent exposure.

A retired Navy doctor of the first gulf war era shared with me that he came down with 'arthritis' after that time period