Feeling a little Queazy?

[bgreet]

I'm volunteering this summer in the e.r. following a physician, and a guy came in with an arterial laceration squirting blood all over the place. I went into the room where the doc was stopping/suturing the wound and I started to feel sick to my stomach. After stepping out for 5 mins or so I went back in and once again I felt sick (not as bad though) but I just stuck it out while feeling very light headed. I just want to make sure I'm not the only one that had these feelings before going into medicine. I don't want to go into medicine and feel sick everytime someone with gushing blood walks in the door. Does this go away?

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[Sessamoid]

Yes, it goes away with experience. Happened to me on a routine hand laceration during my first year of medical school. Never since.

 

[flighterdoc]

I'm volunteering this summer in the e.r. following a physician, and a guy came in with an arterial laceration squirting blood all over the place. I went into the room where the doc was stopping/suturing the wound and I started to feel sick to my stomach. After stepping out for 5 mins or so I went back in and once again I felt sick (not as bad though) but I just stuck it out while feeling very light headed. I just want to make sure I'm not the only one that had these feelings before going into medicine. I don't want to go into medicine and feel sick everytime someone with gushing blood walks in the door. Does this go away?

It goes away. Just remember to never vomit on your co-workers, or into an open wound.

The only time I ever really lost it though, was on a training exercise where the "victim" had some very realistic makeup - his ennucleated eye, hanging there, did it to me 🙂

 

[Seaglass]

If you are feeling lightheaded then leave the room and sit down. The last thing we want to have to do is admit you as a patient.

 

[bgreet]

If you are feeling lightheaded then leave the room and sit down. The last thing we want to have to do is admit you as a patient.

Funny....

 

[Sessamoid]

Funny....

Perhaps. But it's a stock line for most of us when speaking to family members who want to observe a procedure.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

I think it happens to everyone once...mine was a bloodless, scalpelless vassectomy as an MSII.

 

[stoic]

The first procedure I observed was a lumbar puncture and I nearly passed out during it... and that's not even a particuarly messy procedure 😱 Since then I've seen countless injuries/procedures that are much worse without problem.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

For some reason it's worse when you're just watching, instead of thinking about how you're going to fix the problem and get that person out of your ED. You just become numb to it after a while I guess.

 

[DrQuinn]

Perhaps. But it's a stock line for most of us when speaking to family members who want to observe a procedure.

Woah! I learned that line from your ex-colleague BH. I thought it sounded great and have been using it since. It works like a charm! I've only had one resistant family member but she was persuaded by an astute very hot nurse.

 

[aliraja]

It's definitely temporary. My high school anatomy class went to the OR and I passed out during a bowel resection. Since then I haven't had any problems with even the craziest stuff to come through the trauma bays - so don't worry about it at all.

Speaking of nasty, I had a guy come in early this morning after getting into a fight at a bar during which another guy bit off the distal tip of his left thumb. Not just soft tissue... nail, nailbed, the works - down to the bone. The cops looked and looked for it and finally asked the other guy where he had spit it... turns out - yup, you guessed it - he swallowed it.

I guess you do what you can when the kitchen closes at 1:00 and you're hungry for a snack.

 

[VienneseWaltz]

I've had to sit down both times I saw feet operated on ... weird. Nothing else phases me--bloody trauma, head & neck surgery, fine--but something about feet ... I hope that passes, too.

 

[bgreet]

That is SO gross. I thought Tyson was bad, but damn to swallow it? Here I am gawking over a knife wound where you have real life cannibals walking around.

 

[Febrifuge]

I think it happens to everyone once...mine was a bloodless, scalpelless vassectomy as an MSII.

Only a student would forget to use the scalpel.

Or wait... that's not what you meant. Right? 😉

 

[MErc44]

damn I have too much time on my hands. I've never been afraid of blood or any of that stuff, but while watching orthopedic surgery a few years ago I had to step away from the table and sit down from the smell of the cauterization. I had never had that sensation of almost passing out before nor since.

 

[Blue128K]

I see most of these replys are about bloody and gorey proceedures or trauma. I am an EMT-B who wants to become a MD in the ER however I have a weird thing about vomit. Does anyone else have or ever had this problem? I can stand all the bloody and gorey trauma but when someone starts vomiting I feel sick myself. Sometimes I come very close to becoming sick myself. If anyone else has/had this problem does it go away too? I get worried sometimes when I feel that way seeing how if I am going to put all this time and effort (not to mention Money) into a medical education. Thanks

 

[Seaglass]

I have a thing with sputum. I think eveybody still has one thing that gets them.

 

[raptor5]

What I do is drink plenty of Jack Daniels and look in the mirror when I vomit. I have almost become immune to the sight of vomit.

 

[Gutierrez001]

I work in the ER in miami beach at mount siani as a ER tech, and the thing that really gets me sick is not blood or vomit it is the smell of homeless people that have not taking a shower in YEARS , and have craped and pissed them self. I almost vomit this pass saturday on a co-worker when cutting of the pants of a homeless PT .... but it never came out. 😀

 

[Annette]

I almost lost it on a psych patient with vaginal complaints. She said she smelled like a dead rat down there. When I came back to the padded room (with NO ventilation), I had to immediately step out. Ended up using benzoin on a mask. The truely aweful part was when she smelled her underwear as she was starting to get dressed!

I have personal proof that sympathetic puking/passing out does lessen with exposure- today when the ortho doc showed me the radial side of my lunate and lack of cartilage, I didn't even bat an eye. Of course the versed prol helped quite a bit 🙄