I've never been bothered by seeing blood or even touching blood, etc. But today for some reason I was really bothered by my bio lecture on the process of blood circulation and going into the atrium, chamber, lungs, recirculate blood, etc. Then my hand felt weak and I had to hold my pencil in a weird way. O_O Did any of you experience this?
are any of you disturbed by blood?
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The lecture format may have hit you different way (maybe it was compounded by low blood sugar from an empty stomach) and made you woozy. There's nothing wrong with having a RXN to the sight of blood, it's pretty natural. I get woozy to and I used to be an ER Tech. I'm hoping that the ability to stand the sight of blood is a skill that can be acquired w/ exposure rather than an innate ability. Or else I'm going to be screwed going into EM.
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yea kid I feel alittle anxiety too when I realise how delicate the system is. Also made me want to take care of it more
I get similar feeling when I see what polution and global warming does to the ecosystem..
I get similar feeling when I see what polution and global warming does to the ecosystem..
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I have similar reactions to blood, but only in particular circumstances. I have scrubbed in to watch multiple thoracic surgeries and I perfuse mice for my lab, neither of which bother me significantly. Sometimes I feel slightly lightheaded, and I just try to close my eyes for a moment, focus on my breathing, and think happy thoughts (seriously). I think that looking into some relaxation strategies can help you become more comfortable with blood.
I do have a reaction to blood when the person bleeding is a) me or b) someone I am close to. I nicked my finger once and nearly fainted; my friend fell and hit his head while ice skating and I felt very woozy. The same breathing techniques did help me. I just hope that I'll never have to perform surgery on someone close to me I think there are rules against that anyways...
I do have a reaction to blood when the person bleeding is a) me or b) someone I am close to. I nicked my finger once and nearly fainted; my friend fell and hit his head while ice skating and I felt very woozy. The same breathing techniques did help me. I just hope that I'll never have to perform surgery on someone close to me
I think there are rules against that anyways...- Joined
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Specific phobias are successfully treated with exposure therapy, so I assume that this skill can be learned. I'm not that you have a blood phobia, rather that these types of reactions can be extinguished with exposure.
EDIT: Personally, I don't mind blood (generally the adrenaline rush is so strong that I'm focused and not thinking about the blood). However, I can't deal with vomit. I start retching and nearly throw up myself.
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I've seen a lot of surgeries and have never been disturbed by anything... until.... this patient had trouble breathing post-surgery, the anesthesiologist put some sort of gel on this ''breathing straw'' and quickly shoved it up her nose.
Everyone has their ''things'' that make them uneasy. Mine is getting something shoved deep up my nose.
Everyone has their ''things'' that make them uneasy. Mine is getting something shoved deep up my nose.
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LOL, one of things I learned as en ER Tech is that if there's a hole, a tube can be stuck up it for medical purposes. And I mean any hole in the body. Most of those procedures are on my list of "Top 10 Medical Procedures I Never Want Preformed on Me While Conscious"
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Serial killers?......just joking! You're lucky that you'll have an easier time doing clinicals than those of us in the woozy crowd.
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I think watching a bronch wash is way worse than blood. Then again I draw blood all day every day. The best therapy is just exposure. You'll soon get over your discomfort.
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I'm with you, gross stuff doesn't bother me at all, I have absolutely no problem with anatomy, blood, what have you. Actualy, i'll have to come clean...one thing has grossed me out. I was shadowing a doctor and this woman came in with giant hemroids...he popped them right there on the spot with me watching....wow.
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The only time I've felt queezy thinking about something medical related was when we talked about Phineas Gage in my anatomy class (he's the guy who had a railroad spike go through his head and live to tell about it).
Had a hard time wrapping my mind around that one...
Had a hard time wrapping my mind around that one...
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The only time I've felt queezy thinking about something medical related was when we talked about Phineas Gage in my anatomy class (he's the guy who had a railroad spike go through his head and live to tell about it).
Had a hard time wrapping my mind around that one...
Yeah, I remember that one. It's so crazy he survived b/c the spike through the head aside...it was like 1910! They were still treating patients w/ mercury back then.
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yea..i think my mammalian phys class heightened my awareness of the gag reflex..before, i could watch people vomit (u know, those pesky kids who eat too much, run around the store, stop for a brief second, look up at you, look down at the ground, and spew like there's no tomorrow) and marvel at the wonders of physics..now, my gag reflex sort of triggers itself whenever i see someone else vomit...is it payback?
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Have any of you did sports when you were kids. Everyday I came home with a scrapped leg, bloody hand, or some bruise that I usually poked for kicks. I got over blood pretty quick, its almost like kool-aid escaping the body now. IMO, you have to feel comfortable with everything your body produces before you can be comfortable with someone elses.
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Actually, I don't mind the sights of things in the hospital... but some of the smells are unbearable. This is why god invented nurses... so doctors don't have to change diapers.
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yea..i think my mammalian phys class heightened my awareness of the gag reflex..before, i could watch people vomit (u know, those pesky kids who eat too much, run around the store, stop for a brief second, look up at you, look down at the ground, and spew like there's no tomorrow) and marvel at the wonders of physics..now, my gag reflex sort of triggers itself whenever i see someone else vomit...is it payback?
Shut UP! I thought I was the only crazy pre-med who is going to have to get used to seeing people puking. Well, Emergency Med and Peds rotations will be major exposure therapy for us.
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I was a little uneasy when i first saw a surgery, but after that it was fine. Now I can watch a bloody thoracotomy and not really flinch, but the thing that still gets me for some reason is partially cut off fingers or any kind of burn surgery (especially when its on the hands). Something about the hand and fingers bleeding profusely or being 89% cut off just makes me cringe. I hope I get over it during 3rd and 4th year of medical school.
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Harvard actually has Phineas' skull on display in their museum.
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Actually, of all the bodily fluids out there, blood would probably be my favorite.
..."favorite" might be too strong a word, but let's just say I can think of several other fluids that would beat blood hands-down on my personal list of grossest substances produced by the human body.
..."favorite" might be too strong a word, but let's just say I can think of several other fluids that would beat blood hands-down on my personal list of grossest substances produced by the human body.
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yea..i think my mammalian phys class heightened my awareness of the gag reflex..before, i could watch people vomit (u know, those pesky kids who eat too much, run around the store, stop for a brief second, look up at you, look down at the ground, and spew like there's no tomorrow) and marvel at the wonders of physics..now, my gag reflex sort of triggers itself whenever i see someone else vomit...is it payback?
Teehee...hey, it's not too late to switch to research! (Rats, for instance. While they might have their own creep-out factor, they don't have the ability to vomit...)
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I don't mind at all, in fact I sort of like seeing gross stuff
, though I do think cutting open a live person might prove to weird me out a bit. That I do believe will be an acquired skill, thankfully, and hopefully!It's those day when I can come home from work talking about the elderly patient who fell and scraped half her face skin off, and I was the lucky one to put the gross bloody mass back where it belonged that makes it fun!
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This might be sorta unrelated but the funniest thing happened when I was taking a tour at at medical school after my interview. This girl the whole time we were taking the tour was going off about her passion for studying medicine to our tour guide, and when we entered the gross anatomy lab she went mute...and just said, "I hope we don't have to come here a whole lot i absolutely hate this."
I thought it was pretty funny, even the tour guide couldn't hold himself and chuckled
I thought it was pretty funny, even the tour guide couldn't hold himself and chuckled
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I'm fine with blood, ok with vomit, but stool (especially of a consistency anything softer than a soft-serve ice cream cone) KILLS ME.
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I think the worst thing I've ever seen is a plastic surgeon ripping out someone's finger nails for stiches. The patient had shots to numb the area of course, but I still think it takes rock hard balls just to grab a pair of pliers and rip out somebody's finger nail like that. Makes me me cringe when I think about it. Yeesh.
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He obviously didn't...
hate to break it to you... but he did go on living... totally changed his personality though - according to my psych prof he went from religious and mild mannered non-drinker to boosing party animal atheist (i **** you not, this is what the prof said - probably exagerating a bit but, yeah)
im ok with blood, vomit kinda sucks, the one thing i am really not looking forward to is beheading the cadaver... i have a really weird freak out response to beheading (of anything)
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I think his comment was in regards to the "hard time wrapping his head around it" comment before, not the still being alive part -Wrapped head/in head I guess being the correlation.
Gigga wahhhhh? We have to behead the cadaver? I was hoping for the more gruesome stuff like dismemberment, a lab tech or something would be involved...eek!
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I think his comment was in regards to the "hard time wrapping his head around it" comment before, not the still being alive part -Wrapped head/in head I guess being the correlation.
Gigga wahhhhh? We have to behead the cadaver? I was hoping for the more gruesome stuff like dismemberment, a lab tech or something would be involved...eek!
In our undergraduate cadaver lab/gross anatomy, we cut one half off and left the other attached to the body,bisecting it like this...
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Ick, I'm suddenly glad that we have prosection-only at my school.
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It only buggs me if a patient is upset about it. I've never passed out, but I came really close once when the patient was hollering and we couldn't find any blood to draw because he was soo dehydrated so the attending had to keep sticking him over and over
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In our undergraduate cadaver lab/gross anatomy, we cut one half off and left the other attached to the body,bisecting it like this...
It never came out this clean at my school, mabey because we used hacksaws
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wanna be in my dissection group? I totally call dibs on the beheading!
Ever read Stiff? There's a lab tech position in that book that sounds right up your alley....
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LOVE that book.
I just finished it the other day--fabulous late night and lunchtime reading.
I'm thinking you'd be perfect for doing the prep for that face-lift refresher conference in the beginning.
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yeah I'm thinking that my desire to cleave meat from bone will give me a distinct advantage in gross...
edit// and also why I can never go back to the state of Nevada...
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When I was shadowing a cardiac anaesthesiologist, I was not made woozy by the sight of the surgeon sawing open the guy's chest, or seeing his beating heart, or the blood, or the smell of burning human flesh.
What got me was when they catherized him.
What got me was when they catherized him.
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Not true, my own blood bothers me greatly, because im the one bleeding it! Other poeples hardly phases me
I think the ick factor for me is dependent on case. If its something like watching someone be murdered in a tv show or movie, then seeing blood and guts gets to me because of the context in which I'm seeing it in. If it is watching something like surgery, I don't think I'd pass out or faint. I once saw a lady have staples removed from her and the girl who was shadowing with me fainted while I was completely fine though I felt really really really bad for the patient. The worst part was they didn't give her any anesthesia (the patient). I think that's the only time I've encountered someone passing out because of something medical.
I don't think blood grosses me out and oddly enough when I was dissecting recently sacked rats a few years ago that didn't gross me out. But for some reason the overly preserved cats and the gooey stuff they inject in them for anat lab grosses me out. I'm odd like that.
It only buggs me if a patient is upset about it. I've never passed out, but I came really close once when the patient was hollering and we couldn't find any blood to draw because he was soo dehydrated so the attending had to keep sticking him over and over
This is the reason the girl I described above passed out. This happened back when I was in highschool, but I was part of a program run by AHEC in which there were different shadowing opportunities in the second half of the day over a 3 week period. One day we were observing an orthopod remove staples from a woman's calf. The pt had been in a car accident and she was not given anesthesia as they removed the staples. She was in such pain and agony that the girl with me started to black out and fainted. We had to leave the room after that because the girl who was with me couldn't handle it because the patient's pain was getting to her so much.
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shenanigans. removing staples doesn't hurt.
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I can watch a plebologist (I know I'm massacring the word, but I can't figure out how to spell it) draw my blood, and when my sister split her head open (not literally, she just got a nice cut a couple inches long along her forehead down to her skull), I was fine with managing the blood there. Then I sat in the ER watching the doctor give her stitches and I felt faint. I still can't figure that one out.
I also made it through a gross anatomy presentation only getting a little woozy from the smell. I definitely flinched seeing x-rays of the legs on the guy who didn't get his boots on his skis on right... that wasn't pretty. I can only imagine what his legs actually looked like....
I also made it through a gross anatomy presentation only getting a little woozy from the smell. I definitely flinched seeing x-rays of the legs on the guy who didn't get his boots on his skis on right... that wasn't pretty. I can only imagine what his legs actually looked like....
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my own blood makes me dizzy, but everyone else's...fine with it.
