PHYSICIANS AND AIDS--A HISTORY OF THE FIRST DECADE

DESCRIPTION: (Adapted from investigator's abstract) The applicants propose to undertake a study of the impact of AIDS on the experiences of American physicians during the first decade of the epidemic. Based primarily on oral histories of 50 physicians involved in the treatment of AIDS since 1981, the result would be a book-length monograph. In addition to the proposed volume, the research would create an oral history archive that would preserve for future researchers an invaluable resource for understanding the impact of AIDS on the practice of medicine and the impact of the pioneering physicians on the public understanding of the demands imposed by the HIV epidemic. Among the issues to be covered in the study are: (1) what are the factors that contributed to the decision on the part of some physicians to devote their professional lives to the new disease? (2) how did science, clinical experience and needs as well as patient desperations shape the evolving pattern of care in the first years? (3) what networks developed among physicians caring for patients with HIV infection and AIDS? (4) what was the impact of involvement with AIDS on the career trajectories of physicians? (5) what was the impact of caring for patients with AIDS and HIV infection on the way physicians viewed themselves as clinicians, on their definition of the role of medicine as a profession, and on their sense of impotence and vulnerability? (6) how has AIDS changed the organization and delivery of medical care and the relations among medical specialists? (7) what role did ethical and political factors play in shaping physicians' responses to the epidemic?