Can I be a Nurse? Fear of blood.

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A nursing job has everything I could ask for: Being able to help people, think critically, being on your feet, and the pay doesn't seem too bad either.

But there's one thing stopping me. Blood and gore make me woozy. I get light-headed whenever I look in an anatomy book or someone gives a presentation on how the heart works. And it will usually make me pass out and start sweating, it's really bad. I've tried getting over it; watching Plastic Surgery shows and the like but the result is the same.

I'm a pretty driven person, if someone tells me no I take it as a challenge. But I don't even know how I'd sit through an anatomy lecture without passing out. Is there something else I can try that will help me with this? I really want to be a nurse but I don't see how I can. :crying2:

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Any suggestions at all?

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Maybe you could shadow a nurse for a day and see how much you can tolerate? I can be somewhat squeamish and I shadowed an ER nurse and found that when a patient is in serious need of care, no one is really paying attention to the blood etc. They are trying to save a life. The blood and gore becomes secondary. I think you get more tolerant to it each time you see it. Just a thought.

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Specializes in Trauma, Emergency.

try to completely immerse yourself in it. put "gory" anatomy pictures all around your room, kitchen, bathroom mirror, etc. hopefully this might help you get more used to it? eat lunch while watching a surgery show? talk about the amazing way that our amazing bodies work...think about blood components: RBCs, Hb, protein, O2...think about cardio components: myocardial fibers, nodes conducting impulses, valves...if you break everything down and store the information in neat little "boxes" in your head, it will take the grossness out some too. our physiology is amazing, and when you really break it down it helps to get rid of the "ew" factor. for me, anyway...

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Specializes in PICU.

I think its possible to desensitize yourself to most things. So I agree with the previous poster to just immerse yourself in it. I know for me watching surgeries on TV or even pictures can get to me but live, in person for some reason it doesn't. However in order to get though an anatomy class you would need to be able to handle pictures and what not. Where there is will there is a way. I have also found that listening to music while watching a surgery or sucking on a sucker helps it not be so bad.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.

Eh, I wouldn't enter a field like Nursing if I was afraid of the sight of blood, but that's just me.

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