An Adolescent Fearful of AIDS: A `New' Disease Presents Some Old Clinical Problems
Oscar Taube MD1
1 Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, Baltimore
I recently received a phone call from an anxious 18-year-old first-year college student. She had become sexually intimate with a male partner: specifically, she had engaged in oralgenital sex. The "chief complaint" of the phone call was her fear that she would contract the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). A few more medical details were obtained. The patient had not previously had similar sexual experiences, nor had she ever had intercourse. The patient felt certain that her partner had not had many sexual partners, including high-risk partners, (eg, prostitutes). Neither the patient nor her partner had engaged in any other high-risk activities for AIDS, such as intravenous drug abuse.
