-
CycleTrack and SDN are teaming up to make medical school admissions more transparent and accessible! Read the announcement to learn how we’re supporting the future of CycleTrack’s free application-tracking tools .
Scared of blood/surgery?!
Started by girlygirl07
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
Here's a recent thread about the same thing: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=917436&highlight=pass+out
Read through and if you have some more questions feel free to ask.
Read through and if you have some more questions feel free to ask.
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
Honestly, it's the best solution.
Expose yourself constantly to the things you're scared of or uncomfortable with, and you're not going to be scared or uncomfortable for long.
I guess, given the gender composition of the forum, we could modify it to Woman Up. Still the same principle.
I agree. You can't hide from it, might as well expose yourself to it and over time you will learn to control your anxiety around it.
Try watching some videos of surgeries online. Not like ER or grey's anatomy, but real surgeries. Animal surgeries would probably be easiest and prepare you the most! One of the best ways to get over your fear is to do so head on.
Try watching Inside Nature's Giants on PBS. They take awesome animals like horses and sperm whales and dissect them to see what it is that makes them extraordinary. These videos are so cool that you will probably find yourself more interested than scared!
**WARNING** only click this link if you have time to spare. These videos are awesome but addicting. You may find yourself watching more than one. http://www.pbs.org/programs/inside-natures-giants/
Try watching Inside Nature's Giants on PBS. They take awesome animals like horses and sperm whales and dissect them to see what it is that makes them extraordinary. These videos are so cool that you will probably find yourself more interested than scared!
**WARNING** only click this link if you have time to spare. These videos are awesome but addicting. You may find yourself watching more than one. http://www.pbs.org/programs/inside-natures-giants/
Oh, well yeah, now that is a good solution. But calling it man up is just funny. lol Or even woman up.
Have you ever been in surgery and seen it?
You might be surprised that it's not as bloody as you think.
(Or, of course, you might faint, hit your head on something on the way down, and create a big crisis. Who knows.)
Anyway, if you haven't seen it ... don't sit here in the dark worrying about it: go watch some, see how you react, and then deal with it from there. I used to think it might bother me because I'm kinda a big wuss about things like pulling my kids' loose teeth ... but it turns out that surgery doesn't cause me any trouble at all. Now I'd do a surgery residency in a heartbeat if I were younger and smart 'nuff to get into one.
True this! Though I did see a leg amp, once; that was the bloodiest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that it never gets messy ... just that your typical, run of the mill surgery more often than not is a reasonably clean procedure.
I agree--most surgeries I've seen aren't very bloody. I worked at a high volume spay/neuter clinic and got desensitized to that pretty quickly. I think exposure is the best way to learn if you can handle it or not, and to make you more comfortable with the idea of surgery. The one thing I still hate though is eye surgery--scalpel to the eye = yuck.
Also agree that the pelvic limb amputation I saw on a greyhound was the bloodiest thing I've ever seen...
The very first day I shadowed a vet he did a bilateral anal gland removal after they had been infected for months.. After about 10 minutes into the procedure, I found myself standing outside in 30 degree weather, still sweating!!
Now, im okay though. Sometimes dental extractions get to me though. There's something about a drill to the teeth that gets me. Or maybe it's the smell..?
Now, im okay though. Sometimes dental extractions get to me though. There's something about a drill to the teeth that gets me. Or maybe it's the smell..?
Advertisement - Members don't see this ad
True dat!
OP: if it helps, I first started shadowing my vet when I was a freshman in high school. The first surgery I got to watch was a routine spay so I thought NBD right? Wrong! Turns out the dog (a lab mix something or another) was in full blown heat at the time and the owner never warned us. So it ended up being a bloody mess and I almost feinted right there on the floor. Granted there are bloodier surgeries (and I've seen worse), but at the time it just hit me hard and if I didn't sit down when I did, well lets just not go there 😉. Moral of the story? I watched more surgeries, got used to the blood, and now I can assist the vet with whatever surgery (I work there now!) and it rarely bothers me anymore. It just something that you're gonna have to become accustomed to since you will be doing surgeries in vet school. And believe me, it can be done! 😀
A vagal response to blood and/or the appearance of gross trauma is normal. It's a psychogenic somatic reaction to potentially traumatic sensory information which is meant to protect the conscious mind. Those of us that are unaffected by the appearance of blood and/or trauma are the evolutionary weirdos. As mentioned above, desensitization exposure can lessen the symptoms you experience in response to blood/trauma, but how much you can reduce the response you experience and how long it can take is highly variable and depends on the individual in question.
👍 True.
Dog blood? No problem! Cat blood? No problem! Catheter placement, venipuncture? No problem!
Watching blood come out of my own arm and into a tube? Instant nausea
👍 True.
Dog blood? No problem! Cat blood? No problem! Catheter placement, venipuncture? No problem!
Watching blood come out of my own arm and into a tube? Instant nausea
I can't stand looking at my own blood....
I also have trouble with eyes, and I don't like looking at my own blood either. In fact, I have trouble looking at anything involving needles and human skin. I'm fine with giving animals shots though.
I would agree though that not all surgeries are as bloody as one would think, and you do get used to it after a while. The first surgery that I observed was a cat spay, and although it was kind of disturbing for me at first, it wasn't as bad as I thought.
I would agree though that not all surgeries are as bloody as one would think, and you do get used to it after a while. The first surgery that I observed was a cat spay, and although it was kind of disturbing for me at first, it wasn't as bad as I thought.
If it's any consolation, I nearly fainted / vomited the first spay I saw. Nauseous the next several surgeries I observed. Since then, worked 2 years as a vet tech in surgery and am now 2nd year vet student. You get over it, and it's easy to remove yourself from it some and sorta "dehumanize" your work since, well, it's not humans we're dealing with.
I agree. Honestly real life surgeries are WAY different than those that they put on TV. On TV they make it all dramatic with blood and stuff squirting everywhere. This usually doesn't happen in real surgeries (or at least the ones I've seen/helped with)
And yes, as far as I'm concerned, you'll have to perform surgeries in vet school.
I hate mucousy things. I used to dislike mucous a lot but now after working with vets for so long I've gotten over that a long time ago.
Blood doesn't phase me at all. (it probably did a little bit when I was younger)
Seriously. It makes me want to scream "Y'all are obviously doing something VERY WRONG for there to be that much blood!!"
BUt then you observe a TPLO and blood splatters everywhere and you're like WTF - WTF said there wouldn't be much blood😱.
some of the soft tissue surgeries can be bloody, even if it's something relatively simple like a mass removal.
oh and splenectomies (if there's an actively bleeding mass). those can be a hot mess.
and septic abdomens are just plain gross sometimes. we once had a cat from which we removed 1300ml of disgusting stuff from it's abdomen (cat had leiomyosarcoma)
