Actions speak louder than words: implications of a dental experiment.

This study reports on an experiment to determine whether dentists would, in actual office practice, be willing to treat men they perceive to be homosexual. The data show an overwhelming percentage of dentists to be homophobic in some degree and a majority felt they did not have an ethical obligation to treat AIDS patients. However, the study found that an even larger majority of dentists would treat persons with AIDS. And strikingly, only 1 dentist actually refused to treat a patient who was perceived to be homosexual and at high risk of AIDS.