“DOCTOR, YOU KNOW this patient is HIV-positive.”

As I watched a spot of blood pooling beneath my surgical glove, the scrub nurse's words hit me like a ton of bricks.

I'd been called into the OR to assist one of my colleagues, a surgeon who'd requested my help after he'd entered the patient's bladder inadvertently during a hernia repair. I scrubbed in and took a look—the bladder was almost completely separated from its neck. A small tumor was visible just inside the bladder, on the left. I snipped off the tumor with fine scissors, fulgurated its base, and proceeded to help the surgeon sew the bladder back together with some resorbable sutures. We were finishing the repair when I moved some peritoneum away with my hand and accidentally stuck the back of my left middle finger with the suture needle.