Poll on Reactions to Blood

[leesh]

Hi All,
I am curious to find out what people's thoughts are on the compatibility of being a doctor and being queasy around blood. Entirely natural/can be overcome, or unacceptable for someone aspiring to be a physician?

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[AcesHigh]

I think as a doctor blood becomes something of a non-issue. You work with it like a mechanic works with the coolant of your car, it's just there. A fluid of blood cells and platelets. I don't know, this is how I see it. I suppose it would be impossible to completely avoid blood in your medical studies.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

You get used to. I used to be terribly bothered by blood and now it no longer bothers me. It no longer even bothers me that much if it is MY blood.

 

[rpkall]

This isn't an uncommon problem. Just search the boards. There are apparently quite a few drugs for this kind of stuff, but I hear desensitization works like a charm, as long as you're willing to stick it out. I have a feeling that people with this issue rarely choose procedure-oriented specialties, though. Not impossible, but I just don't think it's likely. If you're emotionally trained to be physiologically-affected by the sight of blood and injured flesh (a true blood/injury/injection phobia), it probably won't ever become your honest-to-goodness life's ambition to be a surgeon. Just my opinion, though...

 

[MollyMalone]

I think that for the majority of people, it is something that can be overcome. Every person is different, though, so I hesitate to make a blanket statement.

I remember being in my CNA class with this girl who was all gung-ho on nursing, etc. The first day of our clinicals, her nursing home patient asked the student to help pluck out the patient's straggly chin hair. The girl turned around, said "This is so not for me," walked out, and never came back.

I think it's all about how bad you want it.

 

[kimmcauliffe]

Poop bothers me more than blood.

 

[MEG@COOL]

watching blood on tv bothers me. watching blood in real life (er volunteer) does not. I guess i wont be a arthroscopic surgeon.

 

[SpeedRacer]

i know an internist who said he hates the site of blood. you can still make it i guess.

 

[indo]

I think I read that people's reactions to the sight of blood is actually a reflex aimed at controlling blood loss.

 

[Messerschmitts]

Poop bothers me more than blood.

I second this sentiment. Blood is clean and odourless, I have no aversions to it. Faeces on the other hand...ugh. That's why I'm not going into gastro-anything.

 

[SpeedRacer]

I second this sentiment. Blood is clean and odourless, I have no aversions to it. Faeces on the other hand...ugh. That's why I'm not going into gastro-anything.

not to combine the two on purpose, but have you ever smelled a gastric bleed? holy crap (no pun intended) it is nasty.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Oh, yeah, melena (digested blood) is a smell that you will never forget. It smells worse than a decomp'ed dead body.

Personally I do fine with everything but childbirth.

 

[MollyMalone]

Sputum is my personal nemesis. Ironically, pulmonology is high on my list of career goals. Sigh.

 

[jebus]

Poop bothers me more than blood.

Meconium, ewwwww! My friend's baby knew to get it all over the hospital room floor. Everyone knew she would be a trouble maker from day one.
Blood doesn't bother me at all. Years of killing mice (in labs, not recreationally) desensitized me really well.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Sputum isn't that bad, especially once you learn to read it.

 

[odrade1]

Poop bothers me more than blood.

Yeah, poop is nastier than blood, guts/body-fragments, or body-cheeze.

 

[odrade1]

A few weeks ago, at my volunteer job, there was this homeless guy who found an open closet/office to sleep in. Well, he wasn't entierely mentally or chemically sound, and when the fire alarm went off (randomly), it literally scared the **** out of him. There was a trail of runny poo from the door to the closet-office all the way to the elevator bank. Yummy!
Even worse, the poo covered a thin splatter of a line most of the way across the width of the hallway, so someone (me) had to stand near the poo to warn people away from it.

Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck.....

 

[odrade1]

An I'm not even going to tell the story about my friend who was examining a certain area during a delivery. She wasn't wearing a shield or a mask, FYI.

I don't like babies OR poo, so I'm not looking forward to that rotation....

 

[Pewl]

I love the quote in your signature. Dr. House rules!

 

[DarkFark]

As a result of being a clumsy child, I became accostomed to blood at a young age because I was always spilling it everywhere.

 

[ND2005]

I have no problem with seeing other people's blood.

Now my blood, that's a different story.

 

[Thundrstorm]

Blood has never bothered me. Whenever I had to get blood drawn as a child, my reaction was "cool!" I like to watch the needle going into the skin, and then seeing the tube fill up. Ah, the things that amuse me.

The one body fluid I can't handle is vomit. The mere sight of it makes me want to puke myself. ick.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

yeah, you get over it. i know doctors who went in with blood phobias, and those are long gone. exposure usually kills all phobias. personally, i've never had a blood issue, but there are other things that seriously gross me out and can even make me feel quesy, but i know i'll deal.

 

[Doctor Bagel]

The one body fluid I can't handle is vomit. The mere sight of it makes me want to puke myself. ick.

with me, it's mucus. the last time i visited my hospice patient, he coughed up so much thick yellow gunk, and i felt like i was going to throw up. not cool, i know.

oh yeah, i also agree about the poop. i had going into super stinky hospital rooms for patients who have things like explosive diarrhea.

 

[RayhanS1282]

oh yeah, i also agree about the poop. i had going into super stinky hospital rooms for patients who have things like explosive diarrhea.

I heard of violent diarrhea but explosive diarrhea...mushroom clouds made of feces. .

 

[Will Ferrell]

Hopefully, I'll get over a fear of needles and giving shots. I wasn't able to shoot my dog up with her medicine

 

[shantster]

I'm a little weird when it comes to blood. If I see it and it's not mine, I'm completely ok with it, no matter how much blood a person has lost. However, if I have to get blood drawn for something, I freak out and refuse to look at it because I know it's mine.

 

[LizzyM]

Yeah, poop is nastier than blood, guts/body-fragments, or body-cheeze.

It's all nasty. That's why I like to ask the question, "Has the applicant smelled patients?" If you haven't been that close to patients, you can't really say you have tested your interest in the profession.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

If you have been:
-Puked on
-Peed on
-S--t on
-Bleed on
-Coughed on
-Spit on
-Cussed at
by patients and still want to be a doctor, then I think you're well prepared for anything medical school will through at you.

 

[Thundrstorm]

If you have been:
-Puked on
-Peed on
-S--t on
-Bleed on
-Coughed on
-Spit on
-Cussed at
by patients and still want to be a doctor, then I think you're well prepared for anything medical school will through at you.

or even what it will throw at you.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Very true.

 

[AcesHigh]

If you have been:
-Puked on
-Peed on
-S--t on
-Bleed on
-Coughed on
-Spit on
-Cussed at
by patients and still want to be a doctor, then I think you're well prepared for anything medical school will through at you.

I think you just described a CNA.

 

[jebus]

I think you just described a CNA.

Or a parent.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

C. All of the above

In my case, it's the combination of respiratory therapist, echocardiographer, EMT-I, and phleb that has led me to have all of those happen to me. Then of course there is the whole being a parent thing....

 

[veridisquo]

I haven't exactly been exposed to much blood that isn't mine (aside from animals' blood) so it's hard for me to say. My own blood doesn't bother me. I suppose my fear is more of a germ issue. Regardless, i'd imagine i'll have little difficulty getting over any blood-related fears compared to fecal matter, vomit, mucus, etc.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

Poop and pus and gangrene. I've seen a surgeon drain an entire abdominal cavity full of bile and blood and pus. It was the grossest thing ever. I also saw a case of pyomyositis where the whole foreleg was full of pus. Really gross.

 

[jbar]

I can deal with blood, it is that green bile stuff that comes up when people are dry heaving that kills me. I'm already a sympathetic gager, so that bile makes it that much worse.

 

[QofQuimica]

You get used to. I used to be terribly bothered by blood and now it no longer bothers me. It no longer even bothers me that much if it is MY blood.

I was going to say, I can see other people's blood all day long, and that won't bother me. Now if it's my own....I can't promise I'm gonna react well. What's bad for me is seeing/hearing/smelling other people puking. That will sometimes make me start heaving too.

 

[OSUdoc08]

Hi All,
I am curious to find out what people's thoughts are on the compatibility of being a doctor and being queasy around blood. Entirely natural/can be overcome, or unacceptable for someone aspiring to be a physician?

It either bothers you or it doesn't.

 

[C.P. Jones]

Yeah, poop is nastier than blood, guts/body-fragments, or body-cheeze.

i used to think poop was terrible, til i began working w/ mice and rats....now poop and urine are like my best friends

blood doesn't bother me

like desired user, i have also become a bit used to "sacrificing" mice manually....it's still hard though ::tear::

 

[C.P. Jones]

know what i didn't like, the black stuff that came up the throat of the fetal pig in bio lab.....the disection was fun, but that black stuff was gross

i also don't enjoy vomit, poop and urine smell better than vomit

 

[noonday]

Hi All,
I am curious to find out what people's thoughts are on the compatibility of being a doctor and being queasy around blood. Entirely natural/can be overcome, or unacceptable for someone aspiring to be a physician?

i used to be terrified of blood and of needles. i forced myself to become a phlebotomist and a volunteer member of a poste exposure response team a few years back, and i can't say i'm happy about drawing, but i don't get freaked out. i understand the risks really well (and what to do if exposed in a calm way), have a good drawing ritual, and spent time desensitizing to the blood and the process.

what is it that scares you? is it just a gut reaction? is it based in specific fears: contamination/disease, etc? i think you need to identify WHAT it is that bothers you, and then try desensitizing yourself SEPARATELY from the actual medical school process -- you'll have too many other things to be worrying about then...

my $0.02

 

[noonday]

Poop and pus and gangrene. I've seen a surgeon drain an entire abdominal cavity full of bile and blood and pus. It was the grossest thing ever. I also saw a case of pyomyositis where the whole foreleg was full of pus. Really gross.

omg! i LOVE pus! i drain abscesses every week (working with IDU's), and every one is different...every pus is unique...it's fascinating. i drained one once on this guy's butt that was as big as a grapefruit and smelled like death warmed over, and then had a piece of pizza.

gangrene is also a trip, but not nearly as much as necrotizing fascitis. flesh eating infections progress so rapidly. had this one user in and she had it on her leg, i put her in my own car to rush her to the ER, and the extent of the infection grew visibly in that 10 minutes.

excrement, vomit, urine...i reccomend doing some EMT work and you'll loose that gag reflex REALLY fast, if you want to keep working.

 

[Jwax]

omg! i LOVE pus! i drain abscesses every week (working with IDU's), and every one is different...every pus is unique...it's fascinating. i drained one once on this guy's butt that was as big as a grapefruit and smelled like death warmed over, and then had a piece of pizza.

gangrene is also a trip, but not nearly as much as necrotizing fascitis. flesh eating infections progress so rapidly. had this one user in and she had it on her leg, i put her in my own car to rush her to the ER, and the extent of the infection grew visibly in that 10 minutes.

excrement, vomit, urine...i reccomend doing some EMT work and you'll loose that gag reflex REALLY fast, if you want to keep working.

You sound like my kind of person! Ok, so I don't love pus and have never seen gangrene, but I really, really enjoyed helping I & D and huge abscess on this patient's breast. It was probably the worst smell I have ever smelled. I've been told there are worse things awaiting me. Ah, well. I don't mind blood at all (although I'd really like to avoid getting a needle poke & getting HIV), I can deal with vomit (although I don't really want someone puking on my face...). I think just nasty poop & phlegm are the ones I need to deal with. A patient brought in their own stool sample once & when the EM doc looked at it, I looked away. Oh well. I'll get over it. No gastro-anything in my future, either.

 

[DoctorPardi]

The thing that gets me currently is not blood, or open wounds, but things being cracked open or first incisions.

I work in an OR and at first I was afraid I would be throwing up or passing out after seeing surgery. Blood itself, and surgery in general doesn't bother me, but I haven't had enough experience with people cracking ribs or making that first cut to get past that silly fear.

I actually have surgery as one of the specialities I am very interested in, so I don't plan on it being any problem, and either before or during medical school I feel I will have totally over come my fears.

 

[theblastopore]

I get excited and thirsty when I see blood...a lot of it...






















Just kidding

 

[jbone]

Ya'll are freakin sick . You "love" pus, blood, crap, and vomit? Damn. I'm a medical technologist and work in the lab with all of that goodness, and I still can't say that I "love" it. Urine is the worst for me. Especially the really ripe stuff, full of bacteria, blood, and mucous. And the nurses can't put a damn lid on right and it sloshes all over your latex gloves and arms...ummmm Yummy.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

Ya'll are freakin sick . You "love" pus, blood, crap, and vomit? Damn. I'm a medical technologist and work in the lab with all of that goodness, and I still can't say that I "love" it. Urine is the worst for me. Especially the really ripe stuff, full of bacteria, blood, and mucous. And the nurses can't put a damn lid on right and it sloshes all over your latex gloves and arms...ummmm Yummy.

Remind me again why I switched from medical technology to mortuary science? Oh....wait......

 

[BooMed]

My fiancé’s parents are both doctors. His dad loves to tell me gory/interesting stories about crazy injuries/worms/flesh eating bacteria, but his mom gets completely grossed out. She dealt with it during her training, then became a psychiatrist!

I'm more nervous about dealing with suffering. I don't want to inflict pain on anyone, especially children.

 

[OSUdoc08]

My fiancé’s parents are both doctors. His dad loves to tell me gory/interesting stories about crazy injuries/worms/flesh eating bacteria, but his mom gets completely grossed out. She dealt with it during her training, then became a psychiatrist!

I'm more nervous about dealing with suffering. I don't want to inflict pain on anyone, especially children.

use anesthesia