Mainstream Mental Health

Dr. Larry Burchett / ER Doctor www.DoctorLarry.com"I could never be a doctor, I can't stand the sight of blood."  Yes you can.  Almost everyone can tolerate visual images of trauma through repetition.  This is called desensitization.  In med school, we had 2 people pass out on the first day of gross anatomy (with cadaver or dead bodies).  Then they got over it.  But there is one of the 5 senses that never desensitizes, and there is a anatomic reason for this...So in the ER with trauma, we get used to it.  Blood gets our heart racing, unleashes the adrenaline and spurs us to action--stopping the bleeding and saving the life.  Not event a moment of shock anymore.Doctors can be chronically hurt from PTSD--watching people suffer and die.  If PTSD originates from a moment where one's life is either threatened, or one witnesses another experiencing the same and associates into it, then doctors (nurses etc) may experience micro traumas that accumulate in a PTSD like syndrome.  Especially if professional lines are bl