Unexpected Abnormal Test Results

As a laboratory exercise, your graduate students prepare slides with smears of their own blood.  You then randomize the slides and ask each student to run various tests on an anonymous slide from a classmate.  One of the slides shows very low values on some tests, low enough to suggest HIV infection.  What action should you take?

R3H says:  Because of the implications of this finding to the subject who would benefit from early intervention and the risk to partners who may be exposed without choice, it is not acceptable to do nothing.  What should be done provides a challenge to the professor.  One possible and acceptable option is to alert the class that one of the slides had some abnormal values which might be a true positive or might be a false positive for an abnormality without necessarily stating the nature of the abnormality, although for an educated group such as this, revealing the possibility of HIV may be preferable.  All of the students should be encouraged to see their own physicians for a complete blood work up and HIV testing.