{"id":405,"date":"2009-05-13T09:52:59","date_gmt":"2009-05-13T14:52:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/?p=405"},"modified":"2015-06-04T15:30:52","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T19:30:52","slug":"working-while-contagious-why-do-we-do-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/working-while-contagious-why-do-we-do-this\/2009\/05\/13\/","title":{"rendered":"Working While Contagious:  Why Do We Do This?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2009\/05\/sneeze-7424741.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-406\" title=\"sneeze-742474\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2009\/05\/sneeze-7424741.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"103\" \/><\/a>File this under, &#8220;physicians behaving badly&#8221;:\u00a0 The nearly universal MD practice of going to work while sick.<\/p>\n<p>The ironic thing is we <em>think <\/em>we&#8217;re being selfless &#8212; after all, if we don&#8217;t show up, our patients will need to be rescheduled, or someone will need to cover, or some administrative\/teaching task will not get done &#8212; but let&#8217;s imagine for a second that we actually asked our patients what we should do.<\/p>\n<p>Answer:\u00a0 Go home.\u00a0 Get better.\u00a0 Don&#8217;t infect me.<\/p>\n<p>Or, to quote the signs that have appeared in our hospital since H1N1 hit, &#8220;If you have a cough, sore throat, and fever, please do not enter the hospital unless you are here for care.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>(Patients with these symptoms who are here for care are instructed where to obtain a surgical mask.)<\/p>\n<p>One primary care internist, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/05\/12\/health\/12case.html?_r=1&amp;em\" target=\"_blank\">writing in the <em>New York Times<\/em><\/a>, seems to have kicked the habit:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As a resident, my greatest pride was in never having missed a day for illness. I\u2019d drag myself in and sniffle and cough through the day.\u00a0 Once, I\u2019m embarrassed to admit, I trudged up York Avenue to the hospital making use of my own personal motion sickness bag every few blocks while horrified pedestrians looked on.  Now, though, I see the foolishness of this bravura.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sadly, I think she&#8217;s in the minority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>File this under, &#8220;physicians behaving badly&#8221;:\u00a0 The nearly universal MD practice of going to work while sick. The ironic thing is we think we&#8217;re being selfless &#8212; after all, if we don&#8217;t show up, our patients will need to be rescheduled, or someone will need to cover, or some administrative\/teaching task will not get done [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,8],"tags":[230,236,461,627,721,753,859,863,885],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infectious-diseases","category-medical-education","category-patient-care","tag-contagious","tag-cough","tag-hospital","tag-motion-sickness","tag-physicians","tag-primary-care","tag-sniffle","tag-sore-throat","tag-surgical-mask"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/hiv-id-observations\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}