Campo, Rafael : Towards Curing AIDS

Literature Annotations

	On-Line Text and Audio
Genre	Poem
Keywords	Abandonment, AIDS, Death and Dying, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Human Worth, Infectious Disease, Medical Ethics, Physician Experience
Summary	A patient is dying of AIDS. The physician-speaker repositions a drain in the patient's wound, taking care "to slap on latex gloves" before he does so. Another physician, "a hypocrite / Across the room complains that it's her right / To walk away . . . ." She acknowledges no obligation as a physician to care for this patient. Does she think it is too risky? What kind of risk? Might contact with this dying man somehow upset her ordered world and expose her vulnerability? Of course, nothing she could do "Could save him now." Even the physician-speaker must leave the patient "pleading" and continue with his other work: "There's too much to do."
Commentary	This 16-line sonnet is one part (XIII) of the long sequence entitled "Song for My Lover." The complex rhyme/off-rhyme scheme demonstrates Campo's technical mastery. The poem's complex moral and emotional impact make it an excellent "window" through which to view the question of a physician's duty to treat.
Source	The Other Man Was Me: A Voyage to the New World
Publisher	Arte Publico
Edition	1994
Place Published	Houston
Alternate Source	Blood & Bone
Alternate Publisher	Univ. of Iowa Press
Alternate Edition	1998
Alternate Editors	Angela Belli & Jack Coulehan
Place Published	Iowa City, Iowa
Annotated by	Coulehan, Jack
Date of Entry	11/07/95
Last Revised	01/11/99