Human immunodeficiency virus-infected health care workers: the restoration of professional authority

HIV and AIDS in the workplace

Since the onset of the HIV epidemic, AIDS and HIV infection have presented tremendous challenges to infected individuals seeking to remain productive in the workplace, to employers coping with the special needs of such individuals, and to physicians who treat and counsel exposed or infected personnel. OEM physicians should strive to ensure that employers are familiar with legislation and guidelines protecting the rights of infected employees, and they should support rational workplace policies applying to employees with HIV infection or AIDS. When the potential for occupational HIV exposure exists, OEM physicians should ensure that adequate training around exposure prevention, triage, and treatment is provided. OEM physicians who treat individuals with occupational HIV exposures should involve themselves in institutional efforts to prevent exposures through the use of safer devices and procedures, and they should ensure that immediate and adequate clinical evaluation of exposures is available at all times.