So confused...

[aliann6]

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This is really hard to even admit because I've wanted to be a doctor since I was in preschool. I have a 4.0, I'm a CNA, I have the work ethic to succeed, I get by on very little sleep... everything points to doctor! But I have a problem I never could have foreseen or prepared myself for...
My first surgery was a tubal ligation and I was 100% fine until the Dr. started pulling the tube to make sure it was the right one. I went pale, I got nauseous, my knees went weak, my teeth started chattering, I couldn't speak. I had to sit down before I fainted. I saw a couple more surgeries after that day and I coached myself through them and thought I was fine.. then Monday I toured a medical school and was brought into the gross anatomy lab. The SAME thing happened... standing 2 ft inside the door, not a cadaver to be seen! Just the smell I guess... I went to a funeral the next day and I almost fainted when the coffin was brought in, just because I guess it reminded me of being the the gross anatomy lab.. that's horrible but I can't control it!

I have never had this feeling before in my life! I've never been grossed out by anything! I've even helped deliver a baby and that didn't phase me. And I am so scared because I have NEVER had a plan B if this doesn't work out.

Plus I'm married and have an 11 month old son... and I'm scared that medical school will be too hard for me. My son is the most precious thing in my life and I can hardly bear to be away from him for 5 or 6 hours let alone 80 hours a week.

This is just so hard. What can I do if I decide medical school isn't for me? I'm 3 semesters away from having a BA in Biology and a minor in Spanish. I don't like biology. I only took it because it coordinated with my premed requirements. This is just something I never saw coming!

 

[CielloStelatto]

give it some time before you give up all hope of medical school. perhaps it was a bad week for you. stress, personal issues, lack of sleep, lack of food and water? next time try a situation (anatomy lab, surgery...) where you have assured you are in tip-top shape, and see how it goes - maybe while having a conversation. I'm not saying things should never affect you, because they probably will...but that I bet you can get over it enough to get through and not become stone-faced and unemotional.

 

[bellakk]

I passed out (almost, same as your situatioon) watching a Csection, I didnt know why I never had before when watching surgeries, the anesthesiologist I was shadowing said that there is a small percentage of people whose BP drops when they get into certian emotional situations. Anyway, he went to Johns Hopkins for med school and said that the guy from the top of his class passed out the first time he watched open heart surgery and cut his heforehead ad open on the way down.
I think part of the issue is that after the first (almost) passing-out you've psyched yourself out. Cut yourself some slack! It happens to the best of us!
On a side note, why a BA in bio and not a BS, also, why do you want to be a physician if you hate biology?

 

[nontrdgsbuiucmd]

I felt really squeamish when I saw a worm dissected the first time in a bio class.. then the shark cut open grossed me out.. later it was the ER volunteer work and the dishpan full of blood (after the patient was gone) due to burst arteries in the esophageal area..

After these experiences I am becoming more comfortable with blood and guts, I think this tends to be a common experience that fades as it becomes more familiar..stick it out and see how you feel after another 1/2 dozen surgeries.

 

[Vido]

You know this happened to me once when i was shadowing a cardiologist, i almost fell to the ground while i couldn't see anything in front of me. Anyway i remembered a book i had read earlier that week that talked about introducing new emotions to your body. The book used the example of eating some kind of sour cheese and thinking that it is rotten while in fact, its producers made it that way in order to be distinct. So it is not rotten but your mind tricked you into thinking that it is. So in the OR is stood their and i told myself that i will not let any of these feelings stop me from doing what i want to do and i told myself that i loved those new feeling and that's why i was shadowing in the first place. Then everything changed and i couldn't stay aya from the operation's room. just my little story.

 

[Rendar5]

what veryone else said. just wanted to chime in that being able to get by on little sleep isn't necessarily the best thing. Get sleep damnit, there's no need to not get 7-8hrs/night avg (average!) sure you can't do this if u're on call), i don't care what anyone says.

 

[TexasPhysician]

I thought helping with a birth was the grossest thing in medical school. How you can do that but not surgery amazes me. HOWEVER, I have pulled out multiple unconscious students from the OR. Many students pass out every once in awhile. Just keep at it, and eventually you will be fine.

As far as the hours go, that is a sacrifice you will have to make. In my third year of medical school, I have worked up to 110 hours/week. There are many more weeks at 40 hours than 110 however. There is no 80 hour rule for medical students. That being said, there are numerous students in our class with children and they are doing fine.

 

[Chuck's Right Foot]

You are having a very honest response to your situation. And you aren't alone in this experience. Many people outgrow this response. If this becomes a problem, there are psycholgical techniques you can use to decrease your response to these situations. It's ok to ask for help from a psychologist if you need to!

 

[Mattabet]

As above, don't worry about it. This is just a parasympathetic reaction that is hired wired into the human OS. But the more practice you have with it, the less it will affect you. All the stuff you're describing can be a little shocking the first time.

I was shadowing a vascular surgeon, and he was telling me how a good part of his morning rounds is wound management. He introduced me to the patient as someone who would be helping him today, and pulled back this dressing to reveal a three-inch gash on this patients abdomen. So I'm sitting there, pale and clammy, watching him pull out all this gauze and repack the wound with new gauze using like this giant Q-tip to ram it down.

Proudest moment ever from shadowing was that I didn't pass out right there. But everything I saw after got easier and easier. You've just got to hang in there, very few people are naturals at this kind of thing .(and would you really want to be?)

 

[aliann6]

Thank you all for your encouragement.. I do feel a little more optimistic about my squeamishness now. However I thought about it last night and today, and talked with my husband and my mom who is an RN and I think I have decided to go to nursing school, and then go on to be a nurse practitioner (if I want to at that time). I have always known how much work it takes to become a doctor and I never cared because I wanted it so bad.. well everything changes when you become a mother. I want to be there for him as much as I can, and I can not even think about the possibility of spending more than 40-50 hours a week in a hospital, even if it's only a few years. Missing out on my son's childhood is something that I would always regret. Maybe it WOULD be worth it to stick with medical school, and maybe I'm making the wrong decision in the long run, but all I know right now is that it feels really good to think that in 2-3 years from now I'll have a career and all the time in the world for the park, and the zoo, and disney world with my boy. I'll be doing what I love, caring for the elderly, maybe even more so than I would have as a doctor. I won't be making as much money but it will be more than enough. It just really sucks that I figured all of this out AFTER I took physics, o chem, gen chem, etc etc!!! What a waste!
Oh and to the question of why I wanted to be a physician when I don't like biology.... many upper level bio courses are about plants, ecology, and animals, pretty much anything but humans. They bore me to tears.

 

[kac714]

my first time seeing an autopsy, i almost passed out- had to leave the room, one of my friends got me some juice, and i was fine after that... now its not as big a deal.

 

[mvenus929]

Oh and to the question of why I wanted to be a physician when I don't like biology.... many upper level bio courses are about plants, ecology, and animals, pretty much anything but humans. They bore me to tears.

I took one biology classe in my 3 years that didn't really apply to medicine: Conservation Biology (which I hated merely because the professor was incredibly biased and annoying). That covered everything I had to do for plant biology. Everything else was either human biology or molecular biology, both of which apply to medicine.