Stereotyping Patients, and Their Ailments.

When Mr. S. was doing time at Rikers Island in the early 1990s, he was given a standard battery of tests for the medical ailments that run rampant behind bars -- AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis. He received the unwelcome news that he was H.I.V. positive, though his T-cell count was still in the normal range. After his release from prison, he made his way to our hospital's H.I.V. clinic. He took his medications and showed up for his appointments, but he almost never got lab tests, since decades of drug use had obliterated his veins. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]