This was the most hilarious part in this unfortunately pretty sloppily made movie:
The Doctor gets bitten by a vampire (Mrs.Glick) and asks Ben to hand him his bag, then extracts a syringe, gives himself a tetanus shot (in the wrong place!) and is obviously cured...Wow.
He's not obviously cured. The point of it was Cody trying to rationalize the vampires by looking at them in a scientific way rather than as supernatural creatures. Remember the scene earlier when he is saying things like "they must lack the capacity to generate red blood cells which is why they drink blood", etc? This is a doctor refusing to believe in the truly supernatural, and is trying to see the vampires' "condition" as a disease than can be cured (which, obviously, we as viewers know it can't). A quick bite from a vamp doesn't necessarily turn someone though but.... we would never have known if he got turned into a vamp himself because he got sliced on the electric saw not long after.
shareIn the book, when Jimmy is bitten, he pours antiseptic over the wound, which flushes the blood (presumably tainted by Marjorie) out. He then gives himself a tetanus shot.
Afterwards, he asks Ben to put the cross to his neck, theorizing that if he was still "dirty" from her (i.e. at risk of becoming a vampire) it would do something to him. It didn't, so he was safe.
Jimmy was simply approaching the problem from his professional background. Overall, though, I think that the reason why he wasn't turned was that Ben pulled Marjorie off of him before she could do any real damage to him.
You have a point, but all vampire movies have varying ways to become a vampire. In Salem's Lot, even one full bite and long drink is not enough to become a vampire. Notice the number of townspeople who are pale and tired but obviously still human. Only after the vampire kills the person by several bites and long drinks does the transformation occur. The mini-series appears to imply that it takes at least two full bites and drinks.
The doctor was bitten, but not fully and it seems none of his blood was sucked out. Therefore according to Salem's Lot, he would not turn into a vampire. The tetanus shot was probably superfluous but as other posters mentioned, the doctor's attempt to use his own scientific and medical training to the best of his own knowledge.
It's a tetanus shot against an infection. He treated the wound quickly after he was bitten, which is the plausible way to stop the spread of poison in the bloodstream.
shareI'm pretty sure that you're infected when the vampires drain you to the point of death.
That's why (in the book) some of them were turned after one night, whereas some of them took several days.
Because some of the vampires were draining their victims faster than others.