PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Taylor, K. M.
AU  - Shapiro, M.
AU  - Skinner, H. A.
AU  - Eakin, J.
AU  - Kelner, M.
TI  - Understanding physicians' response to AIDS
DP  - 1989 Mar 15
TA  - Canadian Medical Association Journal
PG  - 597--602
VI  - 140
IP  - 6
4099  - http://www.cmaj.ca/content/140/6/597.short
4100  - http://www.cmaj.ca/content/140/6/597.full
SO  - CMAJ1989 Mar 15; 140
AB  - Attempts to comprehend physicians' extreme reaction to AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) have met with great difficulty since the disease brings into question traditional norms and assumptions. As the medical profession struggles to develop guidelines and policies to help it deal with this disease, it can draw on very little systematic research on the effect of AIDS on physicians' attitudes and practices. We suggest a framework developed from the literature on physicians' and society's response to other disorders that would provide a basis for organizing the ever-increasing amount of information on physicians and AIDS and would guide systematic research aimed at understanding and predicting physicians' participation in the prevention and management of AIDS. Within this framework we consider how characteristics of the disease, elements of the health care system and physicians' attitudes interact to influence clinical and personal practices. AIDS had led to new delineations of physicians' responsibility, modification of prevailing beliefs about physician autonomy and thus a redefinition of the role of the physician in North America.