The Sight of Blood

     In first year dentistry, medicine, and other health-care professional programs, some students feel faint or actually keel over at the first sight of a cadaver or the first sight of blood, etc.

     Some students come up with every imaginable excuse to delay seeing their first patients.
     Some students "vote with their feet" ie skip lectures and seminars that involve behavioral sciences or medical humanities.
     Too many graduate health-care professionals when dealing with medically-unexplained symptoms will tell these patients that they "found nothing wrong," intentionally avoiding the psychosocial elephant in the room.
     The "hidden curriculum" arises, at least partially, due to our personal discomfort with the full breadth and depth of our disciplines.
     Indeed, a key element of leadership in health care is the "ability to inspire people to move to areas to which they don't want to go." Hudson AR. HealthcarePapers 2003; 4(1): 4-12.
     Avoidance comes very easily to many of us, while approach is challenging. Don't health-care professionals tend to avoid continuing education courses on topics about which they feel least competent, and thus clearly need the most?
     It's hard to imagine a seasoned health-care professional remaining uncomfortable at the sight of blood, yet too many of us continue to avoid addressing the very basis of this primal fear - fear of our own death. It's impossible to become knowledgeable and competent in this important area, if we persistently avoid it.

     "If all of us would make an all-out effort to contemplate our own death, to deal with our anxieties surrounding the concept of our death ... perhaps there could be less destructiveness around us."      Elizabeth Kubler-Ross 

       Niemiec CP et al. Being present in the face of existential threat: The role of trait mindfulness in reducing defensive responses to mortality salience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2010; 99(2): 344-65.

     See also: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/03/65-embracing-full-catastrophe.html

Photo: Andre Gallant   http://www.andregallant.com/