Health care professional education and AIDS

The pandemic of AIDS and related infections due to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has associated issues which present specific needs for health care professional education. These include (a) the spectrum of an evolving incurable infectious disease epidemic with new concepts in pathobiology and treatment; (b) specific phobias generated by the pandemic, including fear of the risk (albeit low) of occupational transmission, phobia of death and dying young, homonegativism and substance abuse phobia, fear of helplessness, and transference and countertransference issues; (c) the traditional role of health professionals as health information resources in the face of newly generated clinical and biopsychosocial information, which is often skewed by media presentation and patient consumerism; and (d) occupational stress associated with (a), (b), and (c) and the potential for practice "burnout." These problems are addressed by specific health professional education in traditional and novel forms. Before- and after-AIDS-HIV education knowledge and attitude assessment and AIDS-HIV knowledge documentation will improve health professional and community response to the epidemic, optimize patient care and related interactions, and decrease nosocomial transmission of HIV.