This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Who Is at Risk for What?

Ronald Lee Nichols, MD

JAMA. 1992;267(21):2938-2939.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Despite the high standards set for performance, equipment, and a controlled, safe environment, the modern operating room remains potentially hostile to both the patient and the surgical team.¹ Health hazards, although uncommonly encountered, include those of a physical, chemical, and biological nature. Prior to the early 1980s, when the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was found to cause the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), the emphasis concerning biological hazards was placed on the patient as a host for nosocomial bacterial infections. Consideration of the patient as the vector of blood-borne viral infections has evolved during the last decade—a late realization considering the 30-year knowledge that hepatitis B virus (HBV) is acquired in the workplace and has been responsible for many deaths, now estimated at over 200 health care workers (HCWs) annually.^2,3 It appears that the apparently uniform fatal outcome of clinical AIDS, combined with the absence of a preventive vaccine . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Department of Surgery, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, La.

Footnotes
Reprint requests to Department of Surgery, Tulane University School of Medicine, 1430 Tulane Ave, New Orleans, LA 70112 (Dr Nichols).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?