As a result, it was difficult for anyone — the audience or any of the other characters — to really know Weaver beyond her tough and bureaucratic professionalism. In an early glimpse into her soul, Weaver defended Jeanie Boulet, played by Gloria Reuben, a physician assistant who contracted HIV from her adulterous husband. Later Boulet contracts Hepatitis C from a needle stick accident involving an infected patient. She fought to keep her job and dignity, while some doctors worried about the liability involved in having an HIV-positive employee in the ER. Weaver was the first person in a position of power to side with Jeanie, and the two remained friends until Jeanie's budget-related firing and her successful pressure campaign to get her job back. They reconciled and were close friends again when Jeanie left the ER to be with her new husband and raise her adopted HIV-positive son, Carlos.