Please help me.
I'm scared of Every procedure. And there isn't a department I haven't had a blackout in. I know that I feel that the patients are gonna be in pain during the procedure, so I freak out. And trust me this is not my problem
I try to stand in the front and be brave and watch everything but I do not know when I fall down and the nurses tell me I was down to 100/60mmHg. I am trying my best but nothing is working please help. I am so much depressed.
Not medical advice.
If it were me, I might go see my PCP, see if I could get in with a psychiatrist and try to get some therapy to deal with this.
Also, you could talk to your Dean, the surgery dept. This likely isn't their first rodeo with this sort of phobia in a student.
I would look up stuff online about getting over such fears.
I would probably try a few things. On fellow students, friends/family etc, I would practice exam manuveurs. Over and over again, and the more "invasive" the better (if you can practice with an opthalmoscope, otoscope, some other exam manuveurs like pressing in for the liver's edge aren't exactly fun, or plantar flexor response, done right it's noxious stimuli not a tickle). TMI, but I learned to find the spermatic cord and check for an inguinal hernia with my male partner in the shower (the school had actually suggested this! That's a bit invasive, doesn't hurt, doesn't feel like a party either). You can have students practice some things on you so you can see that even "uncomfortable ones" (like a student spending 5 minutes blinding you to *really* find the disc) aren't that bad.
I know that's a far cry from some of these other procedures, maybe you're already totally comfortable manipulating people like this, but I'm guessing you're not totally comfortable with the basic physical exam, either. I wasn't fully until intern year, so yeah. The more you do the more you take for granted.
This is sorta like baby steps of like exposure therapy to get used to going things to people. It helps if you can learn to zone out on what you're doing and sort of forget the subjective (sorts creepy, I know, but it's true a lot of times when you do an exam or procedure.)
Take deep breaths.
Try meditation and grounding exercises. You need to be more in the moment and less listening to your fears over what *could* be and pay attention to what is.
One mantra that helped me, "I'm a doctor. (you're going to be, the chant stands). I'm a soldier (for health). I'm calm. I here to help." (Sometimes you) "Gotta harm to heal. Gotta harm to heal."
It's not about a brave front. It's about steeling yourself. I don't know, now I imagine ripping band-aids off myself to try to go to my strong inner core. You need to find the center of your being that can face suffering with equanimity.
Like the grounding. You need to find your strong determined no nonsense inner self. Learn to quiet your mind.
I found long distance running or intense aerobic exercise helped me do all of the above (quiet your mind, be in the moment, meditative, push yourself, determination).
If you focus on the patient's subjective in these instances, you fail the patient. Remember that. "The patient is not the disease, but the disease is my enemy."
The patient is suffering from the
disease, whether they know it or feel it or not. The procedure will alleviate their suffering. Again this is philosophical woo-woo, but the thing about the suffering from the procedure, it's ephemeral. The real suffering is the disease. The suffering from the procedure will pass and the patient will be better. You need to focus on *that*.
Check out some stuff from Thich Nhat Han about being in the moment.
Pain is not the problem. The disease is. Don't let anything stop you from doing what's best for a patient! They aren't letting their own pain stop them, which is why they are subjecting themselves to the procedure. So don't worry about what they're going through, worry about being present for them TO DO YOUR JOB. If they can live through it, who are you to get more worried about it than they are?? To the point you can't function?? Lol. Jeez doc, take it easy! It's not so bad.
I'm not beating you up, this is like a TV Scrubs moment, it's sort of funny, don't you think, when the patient is suffering, and the doctor is needing comfort from the patient when the patient is the one with the problem??
I'm trying to get you ideas for other ways to look at this.
The problem is in your mind, and your mind will be where you resolve it. Reach into yourself, reconnect with why you wanted to be a doctor, and then connect with the most determined part of yourself to control these worries.
