AIDS during the 80s

[Irish_Mist]

We are studying lymphatics and immunity in my anatomy and physiology 2. For extra credit, we watched a movie called "And the Band Played On". It was about the AIDS epidemic and the doctors from the CDC as well as the French scientists and doctors trying to figure out what was killing gay men, hemophiliacs, and others.

I learned about things like bath houses, the retrovirus topic, patient zero. Forgive me for sounding a bit "sheltered". I just never knew about the bath house topic but then again, I was born in 1988. :)

My mom was a restaurant manager at the time and even lost some of her employees/dear friends to AIDS. It truly was saddening to read about how these people lost their lives and how initially no one knew why. Anyhow, I'm sure many of you were nurses in the 80's when AIDS was such a mysterious crisis. If you were a nurse in the 80's, please chime in. Being in the medical field, what was it like? Were you afraid of getting this mystery disease? I read that there were some healthcare workers who refused to care for anyone with "gay cancer". Watching this movie got me thinking. It was fascinating to research AIDS from a cultural and scientific perspective. Things definitely have shifted in a different direction.

[Irish_Mist, BSN, RN]

We had a nurse the other day who seemed out of sorts that her admit had HIV. Everyone was a little incredulous that it was an issue for her, and there were several comments such as "This isn't the 80s, you don't need to be ignorant about taking care of an HIV pt," and "well, don't have unprotected sex with him and you'll be fine." Nice to see that even in small town Midwest, that attitude and level of ignorance isn't acceptable.

I'm honestly a bit shocked that an educated medical professional such as your colleague was worried about caring for her patient with HIV. A nurse should definitely know better than that! I'm glad people said those things to her. Hopefully, she snapped out of it and realized how ignorant she seemed especially as a professional who should know better.

[nurseprnRN, BSN, RN]

No, she didn't get it. But now, thirty years later, she's being worked up for liver failure. Not sure what that's all about.

Something like 300 health care workers per year get hepatitis from work, far, far more than get HIV from the same exposure. Subclinical cases often disclose themselves as liver cancer in 30-ish years. The pt population overlaps a good deal c the HIV population d/t IV drug use.