Stresses on physicians treating AIDS.

Psychologic issues for physicians treating AIDS include feelings of helplessness, discomfort with alternative lifestyles, fear of contagion and grief. Physician reactions may include unnecessarily heroic medical interventions, avoidance of the patients' families, injudicious use of narcotics, unwillingness to involve patients' homosexual partners in treatment decisions, anger at hospital personnel and colleagues, refusal to supervise medical students on AIDS cases, despondency and even resignation from employment.