In the mid-80s, when I was a teenager, I had a brief conversation with a successful, well-off doctor. I wasn’t a patient. This person was sort of a family friend. In that conversation he said matter-of-factly but with the air of a let’s-be-real statement that he wouldn’t want to treat AIDS patients because he didn’t want to run the risk of getting AIDS himself.
Some context is important. This was still very early in the AIDS epidemic. The first blood test for HIV only became available in 1985. This was not a callous or uncaring man. And at least at the margins it wasn’t yet as clear as it would eventually be just how much risk physicians faced. But the comment stuck with me and I kept thinking about it. I still haven’t forgotten it 40 years later.
