That is the word. Anxiety. I would have trouble breathing then I just could not focus completely on studying and I know medical school will be a lot more rigorous. But THANK YOU for the advice, I will do just that before I start.
Glad to hear it! Don't get discouraged by medical problems, anything you deal with and resolve are experiences that you can draw on in order to help patients down the road. Medical school will be extremely rigorous, but I know you can do it because others have gone before you, having to deal with medical problems as serious or much more serious than yours. Definitely sounds as though it stems from anxiety, and while you should certainly talk to your allergist a psychiatrist (and psychologist) may be immensely helpful to you.
Also, I get the impression that you are worrying about hypothetical emergency situations, having not had much experience in the field. You will be trained extensively before confronting medical emergencies. When you first do so, you will fall back on your training. It kicks in and you do what is needed of you. When you see documentaries of doctors, nurses, paramedics, and EMTs working under highly stressful situations, they are utilizing their training. You may very well going into a specialty that is stressful once you get control of your anxiety. I know doctors and nurses that were afraid of/extremely stressed out by blood when they started out and ended up in EM or surgical specialities. You get used to things and the stuff that used to induce terror soon becomes routine. And that's the whole point of medical training, so that not only can you fall back on your extensive training and experience, but also go beyond it in oder to think creatively in novel situations.
Another thing that may be of use to you is talking to a psychologist. There are plenty of cognitive strategies that are great for helping people deal with anxiety, from meditation to cognitive behavioral therapy, that a competent psychologist can teach you. For me, having worked in emergency services, focusing on the moment that I'm in and the
specific tasks that need to be accomplished is vital. Furthermore, I work to disconnect myself emotionally from serious situations; sure, a patient might be in pain, but it's ultimately selfish of me to freak out because that won't help them. Instead, I focus on calming them down, encouraging them to focus on their breathing, and treating any specific medical problem (that is within my scope of practice to treat). Again, it's all about focus on the tasks and the problem solving that it takes to fix the situation. Should I be doing compressions? If I am doing compressions, are they effective? If not, why not? Can I fix the reason for my ineffective compressions or do I need to call for someone else to jump in because I'm too exhausted? It's certainly a stressful scenario but I'm not thinking about the emotionally serious facts of the situation while I'm working on the patient. I'm just doing my job. I may have aftereffects from some of the more serious calls I've been on where patients didn't make it, but I talk those out calmly with my significant other, which allows me to emotionally process the gravity of what I've been through. Studying can be trickier for me in some ways (ha, I get more nervous about huge tests that I do about CPR), but again it's about not worrying about the future and doing the best you can. Medical school, unlike undergrad, is not designed to flunk you out--it's designed to train you to be the best doctor you can be. There are plenty of resources, from peers to professors, who will help guide you through the process. If you got into a medical school, it's because the adcoms believe you have what it takes to be a doctors. That's awesome! Trust their judgement, they know better than you. Keep on truckin', you'll do great!
