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David Henderson, M.D.
Dr. David Henderson chose academic medicine as a career because it would
permit him to teach and care for patients while he remained involved in
research. As the first official hospital epidemiologist at the NIH Warren
Magnuson Clinical Center, Dr. Henderson was charged with protecting the
hospital staff from HIV infection, even before the virus and its mode
of transmission were identified.
“I wanted the health care practitioners to be as knowledgeable as
we could make them and also to be aware that they were taking some risks
that we could not measure,” remembers Dr. Henderson, who currently
is deputy director for clinical care at the Clinical Center. He and other
researchers devised the guidelines to reduce the risks for transmission
of this bloodborne infection while preserving the confidentiality of HIV-infected
patients.
As a hospital epidemiologist, Dr. Henderson recalls the early efforts
to prevent the spread of AIDS, both in the community and in the healthcare
setting. Implementing these strategies often made it possible for physicians
to treat patients and researchers to study the disease as safely as was
possible. The lessons learned from the early management of patients with
AIDS underscored the need to remain vigilant against all infectious diseases.
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David Henderson, M.D. |
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