De-sensitized to gore?

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losangelesrep

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I've always wondered how doctors and surgeons deal with blood and gore. Are you guys already OK with that kind of stuff or did you have to become consistently exposed? I don't really get affected from movies or pictures of real life photos of some injuries. But I am volunteering this fall at a program for premed students that exposes you to the ER and OR, so I don't know how I will react when I see it in real life. I'm scared of the possibility that medicine may not be for me because I may not be able to handle it. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Thanks

When you are standing in front of the patient you cannot react at all. That's considered very bad form to flinch, avert your eyes, lose your lunch, pass out, no matter what the patient looks or smells like. It's a skill you develop over time with exposure. You desensitize. Might give you nightmares or make your skin crawl at first, but you get over it, or at least get used to it.
 
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Hang out with an ordinary 2 month old or a 5 year old who's prone to accidents.

Clear ya right up.
 
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If you've truly explored the internet, you're already desensitized.
 
Don't worry about it. It's perfectly natural to be a little weirded out by seeing the insides of humans during surgery or get lightheaded from copious amounts of blood.

I personally know a few medical students who had a hard time with that and got lightheaded and all, and they made it through just fine! It gets better after you've seen it many times, but I know some that still get a little queasy.
 
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I've seen An Inconvenient Truth so many times that I'm desensitized to it by now. Gore just doesn't get me excited anymore. I still thought he should have run for president again.
 
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i heard after two weeks of dissecting dead bodies in med school you get used to it
 
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i heard after two weeks of dissecting dead bodies in med school you get used to it

Nah. The anatomy cadavers are so prepped with chemicals that they look and seem and smell nothing like real humans. You'll be eating a sandwich in the labs in no time. And neither the movies nor the net give you the kind of experience you have in front of you. Hopefully you guys were joking and don't actually think that that is anything close to standing over a real person.. So no, you haven't been desensitized, and probably won't start getting desensitized until at least your third year clerkships, when you will see/smell death, disease and other sad and ugly exposures to the human condition.
 
I've seen An Inconvenient Truth so many times that I'm desensitized to it by now. Gore just doesn't get me excited anymore. I still thought he should have run for president again.

Actually I read the thread title the exact same way you did. Poor Gore.
 
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Im shadowing a trauma surgeon today starting in an hour! So if i'm not desensitized, i'll be in for a real shocker tonight!
 
ryser21 said:
Im shadowing a trauma surgeon today starting in an hour! So if i'm not desensitized, i'll be in for a real shocker tonight!
Shocker_example.jpg
 
Haha. After reading the title, I thought you meant Al Gore. . . Anyways, I guess I'm just naturally immune from being bothered by blood and gore. The only medically-related issue that still gives me trouble is needles. I've seen open-heart surgeries, car wreck victims, and a leg that ran into a chainsaw, but none of that bothers me. . . Needles, on the other hand, strike the fear of God in me. I watch people having blood drawn and getting IVs every chance I get, but nothing seems to help. Maybe I had a bad experience as a child or something
 
I am really glad to see this thread, if only because I now know that other pre-med students (and even residents/attendings) get freaked out by this stuff and I'm not just a wimp. Whenever I mention that something is gross, my family and friends usually jump down my throat with "Well you're going to be in medical school, you should LIKE this stuff!" This morning it was maggots in the trash can. I'm pretty sure nobody, including practicing physicians, LIKES maggots in their trash cans.
 
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I found that its more the smells that get me then seeing the blood and gore in the ED or the OR. The smell of burning flesh bothers me more than watching the doctor have his hands in someone's body cavity. Hopefully my i get selective smelling soon lol
 
If you're not desensitized yet just wait till you get done with anatomy. One minute you're bisecting the head of a human corpse with a table saw (while inhaling some of the bone dust on accident), and the next minute you're standing over another cadaver drinking a cup of starbucks and eating [insert candy of choice] thinking about what you're going to have for lunch that day. I was never exposed to much before med school, so the first day I went into the anatomy lab I got a little queezy. After the first dissection things got much easier to get through, and since then I've seen plenty of very bad traumas in the county ER but I don't have a problem keeping my head on straight
 
so i am at the hospital right now, watching scrubs, about to eat thai food with the on call trauma surgeon and other residents. thats how slow it is right now.

so much for being desensitized.
 
I've always wondered how doctors and surgeons deal with blood and gore. Are you guys already OK with that kind of stuff or did you have to become consistently exposed? I don't really get affected from movies or pictures of real life photos of some injuries. But I am volunteering this fall at a program for premed students that exposes you to the ER and OR, so I don't know how I will react when I see it in real life. I'm scared of the possibility that medicine may not be for me because I may not be able to handle it. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Thanks

Don't be scared, this is the time to get the exposure. The people potentially admitting you to med school aren't going to be looking over your shoulder. Don't start psyching yourself out and worrying that medicine isn't right for you because you're afraid of how you'll react.

You just need to get in the ER and OR, watch some procedures and let it all wash over you. It's easier in the OR because you get to wear a mask and usually no one is talking to you (or wants you to speak) so you can just focus on the best way to handle what you're watching.
 
I've always wondered how doctors and surgeons deal with blood and gore. Are you guys already OK with that kind of stuff or did you have to become consistently exposed? I don't really get affected from movies or pictures of real life photos of some injuries. But I am volunteering this fall at a program for premed students that exposes you to the ER and OR, so I don't know how I will react when I see it in real life. I'm scared of the possibility that medicine may not be for me because I may not be able to handle it. Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Thanks

I am a vascular surgeon who does a fair amount of trauma work. There isn't much "blood and gore" associated with what I do because I have learned to control bleeding and take care of the injured. Traumas are handled in the same manner regardless of etiology(ABCDEs).

My advice to you would be to do some reading about control of bleeding and trauma before you enter either the OR or the ER. By being a bit more educated, you can focus on the how and why rather than viscerally staring at what is going on. When you know what to do, it is less about "blood and gore" and more about gaining control of the situation. Try to find a EMT trauma book and learn a bit about what is going on.
 
Also there are some doctors out there that don't necessarily handle bloody things all too well. I was shadowing a chronic wounds doc who also does Occ Med at the same hospital, and after a day full of venous stasis ulcers, gangrene, and necrotizing fasciitis he was called down by the internist working Occ Med to sew up a two-stitch laceration because the internist is queasy.
 
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