Abstract

Emergency Rooms and HIV Infection A Personal Judgment Call By Nina Flanagan while the patient is bleeding to death. Most physicians won't take those 30 seconds. We're trained to take care of others, and taking care of ourselves is something new," says Gabor D. Kelen, M.D., director of emergency medicine research at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. The U.S. has 500,000 emergency allied health care workers (not including ancil- TT A "Then patients arrive in the 1/%/ emergency room who need w w immediate care, you really have about 30 seconds to put on only extra protective clothing. Each person has to make a decision on whether or not they feel comfortable putting on a gown " needle stick, or spill on mucous membranes will result in HTV infection. The CDC's recent review of medical literature revealed that as of April 1988, there were 15 documented cases of health care workers seroconverting after this type of exposure, and seven cases where it was not definite that the worker was seronegative before exposure. Four of these cases occurred during emergencies or in outpatient settings, and three of the four patients were not recognized to have HTV at