ballerina to a doctor, she did not envision that one day she would be helping young children fight a deadly disease.

She was midway through medical school when she decided that rather than pursue pathology, she wanted to help youngsters with AIDS get through the day with as little suffering as possible.

The 27-year-old Berkeley Institute graduate also had a strong desire to educate people about AIDS, especially sexually active teens.

She could not stress enough the importance of using condoms, she said.

Dr. Jones is believed to be the first Bermudian doctor to specialise in paediatric AIDS.

And she already has big plans for when she returns after completing a six-year residency abroad.

She hopes to head a paediatrics wing at the Agape House hospice, believing it will be much needed by the end of the decade.

Dr. Jones starts her six-year residency on July 1 at the Children's (National Medical Centre) Hospital in Washington DC.

She spent a month-long trial period at the hospital last December, which kept her abreast of the newest ways of treating AIDS and facts about the disease.

The Bermudian was one of only 24 out of 200 applicants who were accepted for residency at the hospital. But then Dr. Jones graduated in the top ten percent of her class at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.

Aside from the fact her parents Mr. and Mrs. Clinton Jones were working hard to supplement Government and US scholarships to put her through college, the field of paediatrics was highly competitive.

This was due to the Clinton health care plan emphasising primary family care as the top medical job of the future, she said.

She also found her classes were very male dominated.

Having completed her one-month trial period at Children's Hospital to ensure she was in the right field and hospital, she will spend the next three years working in basic paediatrics, then three years in infectious diseases with an emphasis on AIDS.

In the next ten years, she believes Bermuda will see its fair share of children dying of AIDS with an estimated 2,000-plus residents believed to be HIV-positive.

At the city hospital where she will be interning, 30 percent of the cases are now children who have contracted AIDS -- mostly from their mothers.

"A lot of people are afraid of people with AIDS. They want to run away,'' she said, adding that protection during sex is the most important message to get across.

"HIV is on the rise and rampant in teens in the United States, but decreasing in the gay population because (homosexuals) are more aware and protecting themselves.'' Sexually active people must arm themselves with condoms coated with one of the ointments available which fight sexually transmitted diseases, she said.

Getting tested for HIV was also critical. "People don't want to know. But it's here and we can't run away from it.'' Working at a major children's hospital enabled Dr. Jones to keep abreast of new AIDS treatments.

The information, however, was not much use to the public unless they were aware of it, she said.

For instance, many expectant HIV-positive moms were not aware that treatment with the AIDS drug AZT in their first trimester lowered the risk of their baby being born HIV-positive by up to 30 percent.

But, she noted, the information was useless to women who were not aware they were HIV-positive because they had not been tested either out of ignorance or fear.

Also, a lot of mothers did not know that a baby born HIV-positive should be tested six months later because it might not have been infected with the virus after all.

"By that stage the baby has developed its own immunity,'' she said.

Dr. Jones said that in the critical six-month period mothers unaware that their babies could overcome the virus would breast feed their babies -- thereby unwittingly increasing their child's risk of getting infected with HIV.

Further complicating the fight against AIDS, Dr. Jones said, was a new strain of drug resistant tuberculosis, which, if contracted by someone who is HIV-positive, speeds up death from AIDS.

It can also be caught by an infected person coughing on another, presenting a major risk to medical professionals.

Along with her colleagues, she is routinely tested for HIV.

However, the threat Dr. Jones' career poses on her own life does not scare her. "I want to make a difference,'' she said.

And helping HIV-positive children live as long as possible by giving them transfusions, medications, keeping their blood cell counts up, ensuring they eat properly and helping them get through the stages of infection once AIDS sets in, is as much satisfaction as she needs.

"As long as there is breath and a heartbeat, there's life,'' she said.

"And most parents want everything done for their kid even if they will be alive for only one week or one month. The mother wants to hold her child.'' HELPING CHILDREN -- Bermudian Dr. Vaughnette Jones, who specialises in paediatric AIDS.