telling a patient they were going to die, telling a relative we were stopping active treatment of her husband for 60 years, being the first responder to a patient who had thrown up a liter of blood and was still doing so, CPR with relatives in the room screaming, trying to talk an extremely agitated person in alcohol withdrawal to let you give them drugs before they go into a life-threatening seizure, lots of seeing and examining dead bodies, body fluids, and body parts)
One of the coolest parts of the job is realizing you’ve learned to be calm in these situations.
One of the coolest parts of the job is realizing you’ve learned to be calm in these situations.