passing out in med school

[ixitixl]

Just out of curiosity, how many of you have passed out during the first day of anatomy lab or watching your first surgery?

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[nutmegs]

nope

 

[jbish]

No one in my class of 190 passed out in anatomy. We haven't hit the wards yet so no data about surgeries.

 

[mfleur]

One girl passed out and two guys had to leave because they were not feeling well.

 

[Rod Farva]

I've passed out in lecture at least a dozen times.

 

[cocoabutter]

No one in my class of 113 passed out.

 

[ixitixl]

Originally posted by mfleur
One girl passed out and two guys had to leave because they were not feeling well.

Was this anatomy lab?

 

[mfleur]

Yeah...Have you had people pass out in lecture?

 

[DW]

Originally posted by mfleur
Yeah...Have you had people pass out in lecture?

haha, i'm a freaking narcileptic in lecture

 

[16846]

The 1st day of 2nd semester we had a woman pass out and whack her head on a desk. She didn't suffer any permanent injuries. If memory serves me correctly, it was due to a viral syndrome she had, unaware of its severity at that particular time.

 

[kyra201]

I've heard of cases in the previous classes, but out of the loop with the classes following mine.

One class had a girl who passed out when the cloth was removed from the cadaver's face (looked like someone she knew?)

One class had a guy who fainted during an autopsy (our school requires all students to attend an autopsy in second year & do a report)

Had a girl who fainted during oral exams and written exams (no comment...)

No stories about surgery... though several classmates admitted that they have dozed off during surgeries (me being one of them).

 

[charlatangirl]

we have a classmate who found out - the hard way - that he's allergic to formaldehyde fumes. he fell clean over the first day of lab, and now wears a surgical mask to do dissections.

yow.

 

[mnms]

we had a couple out of 173 that passed out during venipuncture lab.

 

[ab003]

to help combat the faintness, I recommend Snickers right before lab/surgery/whatever - keeping my blood sugar high helps me to deal with the "aroma" that comes with cautery.

 

[acute]

i belong to girls medical collage.

in our first dissection class(anatomy) i thought most of the girls

will faint >> but i was surprised when i saw them counting

the cadaver's teeth and shaking hands with them ...

 

[Blade28]

None in my class.

 

[indiamacbean]

We had some kid at Pitt who was coming for an interview pass out in the anatomy lab in front of his whole interview group and our whole class. I heard he passes out again in the hospital. poor guy. If smell is a problem, you could try putting vicks vaporub right under your nose before you go in. we used to do that on the ambulance when we knew someone was going to be puking. good luck

 

[Weil-Felix]

We have a girl in our class who repeatedly passed out during surgeries. It happened to her maybe three or four times (or maybe more?). Eventually, she was excused from scrubbing in because it was pretty much a given that she would pass out. I think she just passed out the first time or two because of low blood sugar, or fatigue, and then afterwards managed to unconsciously convince herself that she couldn't make it through a surgery without the same thing happening. I'm not sure if she ever got over it.

I myself came dangerously close to passing out on Ob/Gyn during a 2 am C-section. I was wavering, the room started spinning, and I broke out into a cold sweat. Fortunately, the circulating nurse noticed that I was looking a little unsteady and pulled me over into a chair before I went down to the ground. It was weird. I had already seen plenty of worse surgeries on my prior surgery rotation, and had even seen quite a few c-sections. I think it was the combination of not having eaten for several hours and being awakened at 2 am to stand in a suffocating sterile gown in an OR room with poor temperature control. It was a little embarrassing, but it happens.

 

[kutastha]

We had a guy go into a seizure in pathology lecture during a discussion on the extreme bleeding caused by a cut varicose vein. The prof was getting pretty descriptive on how this older lady bled to death and how it was all over the walls and trailing on the ground as she ran around trying to stop the bleeding... next thing you know, a student in the second row was straight as a board having a seizure. He later said the image was a little much for him.

 

[Polar girl]

To start off, I tend to pass out more than the average bear. I also get really close to passing out every once in a while for random things.

I came incredibly close to hitting the ground the first day of anatomy. I was fine with making cuts, but when I was about half-way through skinning the back, I almost passed out. If I had been willing to lay on the ground, I would have been fine after a minute or so. But I decided the stool was as far as I was going, and it must have been at least 30 minutes before I could stand up without the dots and chirping coming back. For awhile I was sure I was going to pass out off the stool. But then I didn't have any more problems during dissection.

I also almost passed out during a lab where we had to draw each other's blood after fasting. The person didn't get any blood from me, and the teacher made me lay on the lab floor so that I didn't pass out. I was fine drawing blood, and later when the stick was successful, though.

 

[bd24340]

we had about 6 people pass out during the blood drawing lectures/practicals. (out of 200)