Spark [Robert_Klitzman]_When_Doctors_Become_Patients(Boo | Seite 185

174 Becoming a Patient
Varying degrees of going public existed. For example, John, a public
health official, disclosed widely, though not fully and publicly, in a letter.
‘‘I sent a Christmas letter out to 100 friends, and told them I had HIV,
and was taking a job with the health department.’’ His disclosure was
dual—of both diagnosis and job change—each legitimating the mailing.
Some told select circles of colleagues or coworkers that grew over
time. These decisions may have been influenced by past experiences. For
example, Pascal told the staff at his clinic, since a previous physician
there had died of AIDS from a needle stick, but had delayed divulgence.
A few literally went national with news of their diagnosis, whether
willingly or not. Infected with HIV by a needle stick, Jennifer ‘‘came
out’’ widely because rumors about her had begun to spread. She then
chose to go even more public because of her sense of broader professional
and social obligations.
Something struck me about my own responsibility to myself and
others to hold my head up high and say, ‘‘Look, this is a disease
we all have to deal with. If we as physicians don’t deal with it, how do
we expect anybody else to do so?’’
In short, Jennifer saw physicians as providing role models to others in
following health-promoting behaviors, a view that not all her colleagues
shared. For her to do otherwise, she felt, smacked of hypocrisy.
I worked with HIV patients because I had hoped that society
would become more accepting. If I pretended my infection was a
secret, I was a hypocrite. How could I encourage my patients to
share their status, and then be living with this secret myself ?
Jennifer thus went public because she was a physician.
Once doctors decided in principle to go public, they had to confront
myriad choices of how exactly to do so—difficulties for which they were
generally unprepared. Unlike other infected individuals who were nei-
ther celebrities nor physicians, to Jennifer’s surprise, her announcement
generated media attention, and panic.
The decision part was not that difficult, but I was naı̈ve about the
telling part. I never really thought about how people were going
to take this.
I told a colleague who was a good friend that I wanted to tell our
weekly hospital conference. She arranged the speakers. For some