VIDEO: Importance of testing for HIV in every patient

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Well, HIV awareness is still an issue, and it's gone down, quite frankly. People aren't thinking about HIV. Our young people are the ones that are most likely to get newly infected, kids somewhere between 13, 14, 15, and 24, and I think a large part of that is that we don't talk about it in school, we don't really have the kind of issue programs that we used to have. People aren't seeing emaciated people walking around that look like they're dying because they are. Back in the day when that was occurring, people had a fear and they had awareness of HIV. We have had guidelines that say every American deserves an HIV test at some point. We've had those guidelines since 2006, and yet we're still seeing one-in-five new infections come in already with an AIDS or stage three diagnosis, CD4 counts less than 200, opportunistic infections, Kaposi sarcoma.

That shouldn't happen. People should get their tests, doctors should offer screening tests, and we're not, unfortunately. So, for me, AIDS awareness means trying again to tell all providers that they need to do the screening for HIV for every patient they see. It can be done in the ER, it can be done in an outpatient clinic, but it should be done. And, for me, that's the biggest message I try to get out to people who aren't HIV providers. You don't have to be an HIV provider, but you need to be someone who follows the preventive care guidelines. We do it with colonoscopy, which is a whole lot harder to get done for somebody than an HIV screen. Awareness to me means the doctors, providers knowing they should test, and patients smart enough to go in and ask for it if they haven't had it.