AIDS

AIDS Rotation �93

I shivered as I got out of my car and pulled my lab coat closed. After checking to make sure I had my stethoscope, notebook, gloves, goggles and pen, I made my way to the garage elevator that would take me to the University of Cincinnati Hospital. I was headed in for my first rotation as a paramedic student.

IV Therapy was my assignment and my preceptor was Jackie, a 20 year veteran in the phlebotomy field. She was very easy to talk to and any nervousness on my part was gone before we left on our rounds.

As an Intermediate EMT I was quite experienced in starting IV�s in the field�6 years of experience at the time. But next to Jackie, I was a rookie. She knew more about IV�s and blood draws than anyone I�d ever met and she improved upon my technique 100%. Though I will always credit her with my increased IV success rate, more importantly I will never forget the simple lesson in humanity that I learned that day.

We were talking casually as we rode the elevator to the 7th floor. As we stepped out, Jackie lowered her voice to say, �Make sure you have your gloves.�

�Got �em.� I pulled several pairs from my lab coat pocket. �Puncture proof and all.�

�Good.� She paused just outside a room. The door was closed and on it hung a bio-hazard sign. Angry red letters on the sign declared, �Precautions Required�. On shelves beside the door were boxes that contained the various infection control devices needed.

Without preamble, Jackie simply said, �This is the AIDS wing.� She removed a pair of gloves from her basket of needles and blood tubes. �A lot of people think that they need to wear the whole infection control garb just to walk in. The only thing that accomplishes is to make the patients feel bad.� She gently tapped the sign on the door. �Unless this sign requires it�you don�t need it. As long as you wear gloves and are careful, you�ll be fine.�

�That�s cool,� was all I could think to say. As an EMT, I was well educated about AIDS and HIV. I understood the risks and any precautions I would need to use around my patients. Still today I rarely leave my house without a spare set of gloves nearby and a disposable CPR mask.

However, this was the first time I had ever been confronted with anyone with AIDS and it was very intimidating. But I was ever the professional and simply followed Jackie into the room.

It was a typical hospital room, two small beds divided by a thin curtain that had been drawn open. In the first bed as an African-American man who didn�t look much older than me. He was rail thin and managed a weak smile when we came in. Jackie stepped aside to allow me to draw his blood.

The young man had very few good veins left and his arms were covered with bruises. I eventually found a good vein in his antecubal area and quickly set to work. I didn�t engage him in too much conversation because he didn�t look strong enough for it. But I was as gentle as my preceptor and was careful to smile for my patient before I left.

In the next bed was an Asian man who looked at gaunt as my first patient. As I drew his blood I thought about the disease that was slowly taking the lives of these two young men. AIDS had always been thought of as a �gay� disease and it always seemed to me that the media only showed white male homosexuals for the longest time. Finally, the public discovered that AIDS could affect anyone, regardless of race, color, ethnic background or sexual orientation.

For me, seeing those two young men in that hospital room, AIDS became a real disease that kills real people in a most horrible way. From that day on I have been conscious of wearing a red ribbon on National AIDS Awareness Day. I have also made it a point to tell others in my EMS community and my family and friends what precautions are important to use around an AIDS infected person and exactly how the disease is transmitted.

Before this rotation I succumbed to the gallows humor of my profession and joked about a disease that has taken so many lives. But not now. Not since it became real to me. Not since that day at the University of Cincinnati Hospital when I learned a lesson in compassion that I never realized I needed. It�s a lesson I wish I could teach the world.