The Mysterious Infection Of Kimberly Bergalis Essay

, Research Paper

The Mysterious Infection of Kimberly Bergalis

Was Kimberly telling the truth about her lack of sexual relations? How did she really contract the AIDS virus? Were Dr. Acers patients in dangers while under his care? These are the questions that I will be addressing in this paper. There a few items in the article that try to get us to believe that the patients may have been lying. The story by CBS news program Sixty Minutes is probably the most persuasive. In their findings, the six people thought to be infected by the Doctor were probably that way because of their own behavior and not of the good doctor. It sounds to me like the program made a direct attack on the credibility of Bergalis.

Without any real proof they all but accused Bergalis of lying. She publicly admitted that she did not want the money she only wanted to help. The news program does however provide that an examination of Bergalis showed evidence of a venereal wart, which could be considered evidence that she was not a virgin as she said she was. Thus, she could have gotten the disease from having sex. But how can we ignore the similarity of the gene of the virus in Bergalis was so very close to Dr. Acer. But on this point I found the article lacking good proof for this point. I would need evidence that there is a big difference in the genes of the virus that is in the US today and then 1991.

Was Dr Acer ethical in his actions? Should medical officials be subjected to forced screenings and sharing their sexual orientation? To a point not to extreme from the standard that we hold to our own government too, I would like to know if the Dr. that is operation, examining, counseling, or trusting with me has AIDS or not. The problem is that if we screen doctors in this way we can be assured that will create disparate discrimination. We may not have the intent to single out Doctors that have AIDS or are gay, but we will.

For example, lets say you have choice between two Doctors. One Dr has 3 years of experience and a malpractice suit against him for an unknown reason and he is 29. Doctor number two had 26 years of experience has never lost a patient, ever? is up for the Nobel Prize in medicine, and has just been a confirmed homosexual with aids by the new screening process. Doctor number one has also been screened and he does not have aids, but oh yeah you just found out that his wife left him and took his two year old daughter because of the malpractice suit. You need to have your appendix removed in two days and there will be no other doctors to choose from. Whom would you choose?

Would you let the administration choose for you? How would you choose, doctor number one is obviously at a very stressful point in his life right now. While doctor number 2 is at him prime years for achievement. What if I threw in another loophole, with the new screening process the administration of the hospital requires all patients to sign a disclaimer for any procedure on them by doctors with HIV or AIDS. Thus releasing the hospital of any liability if there was an infection of the patient. I know that I would rather take my chances with Mr. unhappy pants. At least I know where his pants are, right.

Back the article, when I found that Bergalis mother was a nurse, I was perplexed that it was so long before anyone discovered that she was infected with HIV. I don?t know what kind of a nurse she was because the article does not go into detail on this note. It is good to know that the article does give details that 19000 other patients have been tested and none are infected with HIV as a result of a medical procedure.

I know that it would change the world of medicine in a very large way if we started to perform mandatory screenings. The quality of healthcare would more that likely fall to unacceptable levels and thousands maybe even hundreds of thousands would be out of work or never get the chance. But if you compare this to offenders, wouldn?t you like to know about your neighbors? That information is readily available.