Desensitization

[lovestruck]

Recently, I had to help a friend who got a pretty nasty infected cut by taking him to the ER. It was SUPER gross (the cut was full of maggots!!) and I almost vomited but managed to keep it down. However, my other friend, who wants to be a doctor as well, was dry heaving and could not handle it at all. She's now even reconsidering her career choice! I always figured in medical school you would be taught how to desensitize your stomach and yourself to these gory situations, but she is now convinced she could never handle it.

 

My question is, for those of you that have gone to med school, do you get over the grossed out feeling? Or if you can't handle it, will you never be able to handle it? For instance, I can't handle the sight of eardrums but I can handle gory wounds no problem (I had a family friend who was a doctor and let me use the little scope thing to look into people's ears and it just grosses me out), but in med school, would I be taught how to deal with that disgust?

[future_doc]

Recently, I had to help a friend who got a pretty nasty infected cut by taking him to the ER. It was SUPER gross (the cut was full of maggots!!) and I almost vomited but managed to keep it down. However, my other friend, who wants to be a doctor as well, was dry heaving and could not handle it at all. She's now even reconsidering her career choice! I always figured in medical school you would be taught how to desensitize your stomach and yourself to these gory situations, but she is now convinced she could never handle it.

 

My question is, for those of you that have gone to med school, do you get over the grossed out feeling? Or if you can't handle it, will you never be able to handle it? For instance, I can't handle the sight of eardrums but I can handle gory wounds no problem (I had a family friend who was a doctor and let me use the little scope thing to look into people's ears and it just grosses me out), but in med school, would I be taught how to deal with that disgust?

 

There are many aspects of med that do not have gore, your friend should not give up her dream b/c of one isolated experience. The gore is not relevant, rather all problems are dealt with professionally and without personal feelings that will only get in the way. Do not worry.

[m1428]

The last time a thread like this came up someone posted a link to a website I wished I had never seen. On the bright(?) side, looking through said website desensitized me for pretty much anything. Perhaps too much. Practice helps?

[mcater2006]

Hi:

 

It is normal human reaction to be grossed out at the sights you have described. I find that smell seems to bother me the worst. If I smell hydrogen sulphide, I will retch, plain and simple, no exceptions. Otherwise I seem to do fine.

 

I guess there really isn't anything you can do about it. Some ppl faint at the sight of blood and they seem to be born that way. So I guess the best thing you can do in these situations is to just tough it out, realizing that your MD depends on it.

 

mcater2006

[Lactic Folly]

Hmm, I don't remember being taught to deal with goriness per se.. cadavers and bad news, yes. That being said, I think that most people who work in healthcare do become desensitized over time. I've actually not encountered maggots yet, just the normal gamut of bodily fluids. I think people who are not interested in seeing this kind of stuff tend to choose electives and fields in medicine where they will be rarely, if at all, exposed to it.

[Renin]

I remember seeing my first multivehicle trauma; and the mix of bone, blood and hair was pretty gross to me, but I don't think it bothered me too much. I am disturbed by maggots though. Especially when they're all moving around and being squishy.

 

Eww.

 

Don't worry, though, you learn to know what you can/can't handle, and either work with it or around it.

 

For example, you'd hardly encounter maggots if you were doing certain areas of medicine (Psychiatry), and be more likely to do certain things (Emergency Room). A lot of people are grossed out by toenails.

 

I find the hardest thing to get "Used" to is the emotional distress of the families of the patients who have the maggoty leg, or the sawed off arm, etc. That is really hard. Not good at it yet.

[Jochi1543]

The last time a thread like this came up someone posted a link to a website I wished I had never seen. On the bright(?) side, looking through said website desensitized me for pretty much anything. Perhaps too much. Practice helps?

 

ROFL!

 

I used to loathe even HEARING anything about blood, guts, etc, let alone seeing anything like that. It's mostly gone. I'm still waiting for my squeamishness about toenails and noses to go away. The eyeball-related hysteria somewhat subsided after our ophtho block. But one time I had to watch an ingrown toenail get removed and almost passed out. Last week we had a patient come in for a potential toenail removal and I got so worked up just thinking about it that there were no words to describe my relief when it turned out that it had cleared up enough on its own for us to decide not to cut. My preceptor told me to still watch some how-to videos on YouTube and even though it's been like 5 days, I have yet to force myself to do that.

For me, these few hang-ups come from personal experience (brutal stuff the ENT doc did to my nose when I was a child and having a toenail ripped out).

 

Don't get me wrong, I'd NEVER voluntarily go and watch any sort of surgery, but I've gotten to a point where I think I can survive 12 weeks of mandatory surgery rotations. In fact, I hear people pass out fairly often - even people who don't consider themselves to be squeamish - so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Also, it's apparently worse when you are watching someone do stuff vs. doing it yourself. I remember reading an account by a paramedic who was working on someone who was severely injured in a car crash. He was completely fine when he was in charge of everything, but once his partner took over to give him a bit of a break, he immediately felt lightheaded and nauseous when he watched his partner work on the same patient. There's something about passively watching and not being in control that makes it worse.

[lovestruck]

I think the emotional side of medicine (dealing with loved ones, etc) is terrifying for me as well, but since I've had more experiences with helping friends and family through hard times then seeing people's insides, I somehow feel more reassured about it? I'm still absolutely terrified I'll get too emotional when someones loved one dies and not be able to handle telling the family or that I'll say something wrong/offensive! It's good to know that both the emotional hardships and the gore shock factor does get better as you move through med school!

 

My friend is slowly getting over the gore. The maggots were by far the worst since the smell and watching them move was just horrific. She wants to do family med, so she could encounter some pretty gross things!

[RaVen777]

Well, I almost passed out on my first day in the cadaver lab. It was my first experience with that kind of a situation. As Jochi said though, this was made worse by the fact that I was watching and not participating.

 

I would say I'm getting a bit better with the "gross out" factor as each day goes on. I am fine in cadaver lab now and the procedures i've seen so far don't seem to bother me. I'm just waiting to pass out though!