HEY doc. man ur a life saver, i swear by whatever is holy that what you do here helps calm troubled people like me and others, it seems this disease is causing more and more fears among people.doc here is my question: a guy got hit by a car near my university, so my friend and I (we both have had extensive ambulance and firefighting training-i am a firefighter currently) called the ambulance but the were far so we had to stabilize the guy. we managed to make a strecher from plywood and we tied the guy to it. then an ambulance came after 20 minutes . we were both wearing nitrile gloves at the time, but when i got home and washed my hands, i saw a superficial cut on my fourth finger, so im terrified that a bloody splinter from the ply wood could have gave me the cut.the strecher had some blood on it due to the patient's head injury. am i over reacting???????? please help. what you are doing her is amazing, i am living abroad, you are in my prayers all the time. god bless

Hi Firefighter!

Are you overreacting? Yeah, I'd say so. The chances that Car-Accident Guy was HIV positive and that his fresh blood just happened to jab your finger are so remote as to be nonexistent. If you're worried, a single rapid HIV-antibody test at the three-month mark would give you an accurate definitive result, which will undoubtedly be negative, by the way.

Be well. Stay well. Thanks for helping Car-Accident Guy. Your good deeds in that situation, as well as your efforts as a firefighter, should rack up excellent cosmic karma with the Higher Powers.

Happy Holidays!

Dr. Bob