Commitment to patients or oneself?

Today I got a call from my friend informing that he might have contracted Leptospirosis, which is fondly known by the names of 'Weil's Disease' and 'Weil's Syndrome in this part of the world. Shocked as I was, I asked him how it had happened. He said he thought he got it from a patient in the hospital he was doing residency. The patient, a known case, was spitting blood out and needed resuscitation. My friend had to do his duties despite of the fact that gloves weren't available at that time. In spite of the fact that the resuscitation was in vain, my friend had his hands smeared with blood and unluckily for him, he had some fresh abrasions to help the spirochetes on their quest over another human body. There are two points that I wish to discuss about this issue. One is the lack of proper facilities in Government hospitals in India. This kind of scenes are going on in hospitals all over the world in developing countries. The Government fails to provide enough gloves, syringes, needles, drip sets, IV fluids, sutre material to suit even baseline needs. Therefore, there are times when, being committed residents/interns, we would have to put ourselves to risks in dealing with such infectious disease and even more deadlier ones - HIV/AIDS. Having said this, I must also admit I have seen countless interns/residents who won't use the facilities when they are available. The reason - One of these days you are going to have to do something without gloves. So why waste a pair now? I totally condemn both the aspects of the story. Wait a minute. Who am I to comment? I am, for the benefit of the readers, just a would-be-resident in a Government hospital in India. I don't have any voice when it comes to such issues except for this blog. If I raise the issue in my hospital, chances are that most people (including patients) would consider me as a nerd. From professional aspects to sports - I don't know how many of you are interested in Euro 2004. The fact is that my favorite team is out of the tournament as of yesterday. They were outdone by the fantastic tactics of the Greek. I am not taking any credit of the Greeks but have to admit that using the same tactic over a period of 105 minutes was a tactical error from the Czechs. It's fine if you have a forward in Koller who is taller than anyone in the opposition. If you put aerial balls in from anywhere else on the field into the opponents half aiming Koller, chances are that he will win the ball for you. But if this masterplan doesn't work, why not try something else? That's what they didn't. And that's probably why they lost. They could have substituted the lack-lusture Poborsky in the second half to improve the 'service' to the box. And if you think I'm not geeky enough - I'm a resident doc in India who's into computers, running a website, has a four Gmail accounts, blogging, poetry - dig this! I'm going to try and learn computer programming for upgrading my website. It might be hard to find a more ambitious project anywhere else. But still, I'm going to try my hand at ASP/PHP etc. Wish me luck everyone!