Imagine taking a knife and cutting through touch human skin. We have a natural aversion to this. It is not simply that we do not want to cut our own skin but any skin. The thought of cutting into a dead rat, for example, makes us shudder.

Of course, there are people who have so much hostility that they take a sadistic pleasure in this. They are, fortunately, very uncommon.

Note, the people who do surgery, even minor surgery, have to overcome this averson. This includes the surgery room nursing staff, and visitors have to stay outside for more reasons than just needing a sterile proceedure. A muscual 200 lb male visitor could watch the blood and gore and faint.

Any comments as to how medical people overcome this aversion?

I don't work in the medical field, but I know many people who do.

I think that people that work in the medical field know that they are helping the patient,
not hurting the patient. They understand that although it looks like the patient is being
cut up that they are improving the patient's health.

Many people have seen a lot of pain and suffering. Some of those people go to the
medical field to help those in need of relief. They may have a personal experience
that keeps them motivated.

They also must have had the necessary training in medical school. In medical school,
most people working in the field probably will have overcome the "yuck" factor before
they graduate.

However, some of the people in the medical field might naturally not feel as bad when
they are doing surgery. They might just "be" that way. Maybe that is why that they
chose the medical field, because of the slight advantage that they would have.

This is just some of my thinking.

Hi,

Nice topic I was in medical school so I can tell you sort of my version of what happens, I cant say it will help though coz I've been handling dead things from a long time coz of my cats.

Anyway back to the topic, It sort of is your comfort level, I wont deny that everytime you take that knife you are scared of hurting the patient for it is stil living and breathing but then as you get comfortable with it then you start feeling more confident.

Some times when you have to perform post mortems It is quite difficult for either the body is decomposedor it stinks, Its difficult, but you get to manage as you are helping not destroying,

People who do it sadistically do it for mainly psychological reasons like ,,, Because the person does get hurt himself so he thinks the person he is torturing does not feel it too so he thinks it is ok.

Or they get an euphoric high seeing a person in pain. But whatever may be the reason It happens either when they are not scolded when young or due to traumatic lives.

Cheers,