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

Mitchell T. Wallin, MD, MPH; Melissa McDiarmid, MD, MPH; Michael Montopoli, MD, MPH; Angela Presson, MD, MPH; Venessa Holland, MD, MPH
Occupational Safety and Health Administration US Department of Labor Washington, DC

JAMA. 1996;275(6):444.

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

To the Editor.

—The article by Mr McRae and Dr Stephens¹ in JAMA advocated that medical schools provide and pay for their students' hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccinations. The article cited the 1992 Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) blood-borne pathogens standard promulgated to limit occupational transmission of infectious agents.² The authors believed that medical students are "noticeably missing" from the scope of the standard, and they concluded that OSHA standards should be extended to require medical schools to cover their students.

All medical students need to be protected from blood-borne pathogens. However, OSHA standards can be applied only to employees because the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which provides the legal authority under which OSHA sets workplace standards, is limited to employers and employees.³ Since medical students are not employed by their medical schools, OSHA cannot legally extend its standards to cover them.

Medical schools need . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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