So I'm a first year pre-med bio major minoring in community health & microbiology. Today in anatomy, we had our first experience w/ cadavers.
I never considered myself to be super squeamish, and I've seen pictures and surgery videos and such before, but when is first years walked into a class full of fourth years, we were all standing around these four tables with straight up dead bodies, already cut open and the organs all out for everyone and the face all covered, it really hit me. They told us dumbfounded students to glove up, and start right away. I literally only could bring myself to barely poke a lung, and my legs were shaking the entire time. I've never seen a real dead human body before, or even someone's organs in real life like that. I didn't pass out, but I did get light headed and have to lean against one of the tables next to me, and breathe. Towards the end of the session I did start to see black spots in my vision but I held t together and didn't puke or pass out.
The other pre-meds seemed totally fine with getting elbow deep in someone's chest cavity, and I seemed to be the only one really holding back when the older kids were showing us all the organs and telling us that our cadaver had heart problems based on the size of her heart and the fact she had a stent etc etc.
You see I want to be a trauma surgeon, and I knew if there had been blood still in her body when they had opened her up, I would've absolutely hit the floor. I won't lie either, I did feel slightly disillusioned & discouraged afterwards, and wondered if I should even work in Trauma, which is something I've wanted to do since my freshman year of high school. Maybe I'm not cut out for it? People say you get desensitized to it eventually and all that, but I've also heard cases of it getting worse and people having to drop out, and go to cognitive therapy. I feel like with my luck it might just get worse, and maybe I should change my major to microbiology and become a Virologist instead. But I really don't want to.
I haven't talked to my professors yet, but if any of you are in pre-med or med school or know anything about this. What do you think? I've read some things online about how you just have to learn to disassociate, but I don't know if it's just that easy??? I'm not sure what to do, I still want to be a Trauma Surgeon/Doctor, but I'm not sure how to get past this? Some say to start working as an EMT or shadowing in the ER or watching videos of real surgeries to help desensitize yourself. Ugh, sorry if this is so long!
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