…when they’re studying the nuts and bolts of human reproduction, and the many diseases, malfunctions and injuries to which genitalia may fall prey? Seems like it could be a big turnoff.
Mods, if this should be in another place, please move.
Well, my experience was that it sure turned me off from ever, ever being sexually attracted to, or aroused by patients.
Going home to get some stress relief from the Mrs. was always a positive option though, no matter what conditions I encountered. And I encountered some pretty freaky conditions.
Med students were always pretty randy buggers back in my day. As were the RN students. Only exhaustion kept them from at least talking about it constantly.
While we’re at it… Qadgop the Mercotan, can you speculate on the motivations of a man who becomes a gynecologist? I’m squicked out by males one, even if they’re very reputable, because I can’t imagine a 22 year old male going into the field for any reason other than, well, “omg, I get to look at boobies and crotches all day.”
Well, there were pretty significant dives during the ob/gyn rotations, especially gynecological oncology. One of the few things less sexy than looking at vaginas all day is looking at massively diseased vaginas all day. Well, that and he was spending 13 hours a day at the hospital.
Those were nothing compared to the outpatient pediatrics rotations, though. The hours were pretty good, but evidently most of the actual minutes were pretty lousy.
I can say, from personal experience, no, most do not.
I was touched, pinched, slapped and oogled when I was a student and young nurse. :dubious: Times were different then. We had to wear dresses and white stockings. It did something evil to med students.
It does something evil to non-med students.
(if you watch Grey’s Anatomy, the students’ sex drives increase to the point where they not only screw everyone in their group, but do it so hard they damage each other’s sex organs!)
Yeah, the white nurses uniform was perversely attractive back in the day, according to my aunt. Not the same now that they are indistinguishable from the patients.
I did basic OB (routine deliveries) for the first 5 years of my private practice, it was fun! Well, parts were fun, parts were scary. It’s very rewarding emotionally, and technically it’s very interesting and challenging.
I think 99% of the deves get weeded out pretty quick, for the most part, when they do OB/Gyn rotations. To put it bluntly, guys who love steak tend to not get jobs raising cattle. And even those who do don’t tend to think about steak very much while herding the cattle, mucking out the stalls, or getting their foot stepped on by a cow.
Good point… :eek:
Not an MD, but a med tech who gets to look at vaginal swabs for parasites, and test specimens for chlamydia and gonorrhea.
Doesn’t affect my sex life in the least, but sometimes I wonder who, of the people I pass every day, might be carrying crotch critters.
(Sorry if I’m hijacking, I’ll step out now)
So…we ED docs get the worst possible associations with female parts, since they are always leaking or infected or have something lost and smelling in there or…well…anyway.
It’s an interesting transition, going into medicine, and difficult to describe. But basically patient parts become anatomy and their problems become diseases and it’s surprisingly easy to completely forget they belong to actual human beings. There are much better ways to get perverted access than by going into medicine.
It’s definitely not a turn-on–most sexual arousal really is between the ears. Consider how much more sensuous a partially-clothed woman is than a naked one just standing there. But it’s not a turn-off, either. If you are anything close to normally adjusted, the patient is a collection of parts and your real-life partner is a woman.
Medical students do fall prey to assuming their symptoms are the worst possible diagnosis. Every headache could be a congenital aneurysm about to blow.
When I was coding, I had to read radiology reports that dampened my enthusiasm about a lot of things, including my choice of breakfast foods. Reading about procedures that drained off about a quart of pus from some guy’s belly made me change from yogurt to cottage cheese for breakfast. I suppose if I worked for an OB/GYN, the reverse would have happened.
Robin
When I was shooting for the adult website (several shoots, five days a week), desensitisation was a huge issue for me, and still affects me. Being a sexual context makes the effect more pronounced than a medical context, I imagine (I have no medical experience, tho). Other shooters have reported the same thing.
I’m not a Med student, but I am a Pharmacy student. We get a lot of the same classes that Medical students do, just not in as much detail (basically we need to have an idea of what it could be when someone describes it so we know if it is something they can treat OTC or if they need to go see their doctor).
One thing I have learned… Normal people out there have all sorts of viruses, bacteria, or who knows what. When I used to look at a cute girl on the street I thought, “I’d like to hit that”, now, when I look at a cute girl, I think, “I wonder whats wrong with her”… Now, I’m happily married* so it doesn’t affect me in any way, but I think what I could have been infected with back when.
*Married means look, don’t touch
I don’t recall my sexual drive being reduced by the course content. I wasn’t particularly unhorndog during my clinical Obs/Gyne rotation, but if I were, it would have been the people, the nasty stinky unwashed people and the exhaustion.
My wife used to work at a bank and (if I’m remember details correctly) had tens of thousands of dollars in her drawer at any given time. She said that it very quickly stopped being money and became pieces of paper relevant to doing her job. I have to imagine this is analagous to what people in the medical field deal with.
Not yet.
Remind me again in 2 years, and I’ll give you better data I suppose.
Though I’m already at the stage where looking at unclothes patients is NOT arousing in any way. I had a fear that it would be, and how it would be embarrassing and all. But when it actually happens, I’m usually so focused on trying to figure out how to do the procedures right, and getting the correct information, that there really isn’t any focus on the other stuff. I’m there because I have a task to do and nothing else really. But I haven’t had any OB-GYN stuff yet (I think that’s in 2 years or so, the clinical stuff) so I have no idea how that’ll treat me.
But I am one of those people who is considering it- in the sense that I haven’t found any reason to cross it off the list yet. Plus, my grandfather was an OB, so I figure :shrug; If he did it for 50 years, there’s gotta be something to it, right? Just remind me every so often, and I’ll let you know how my sex drive is going along, i suppose… Or not.
I can’t say that it has. Like others have said, there’s a pretty definite division between “look at sexy naked person” and “look at sick, diseased, pus and fluid filled naked person.” They are such separate realms that they really don’t affect each other. Plus most med students are in their early 20s, so trying to diminish that drive is going to take a lot more than slicing open a testicle or two.
As far as people who go into OB/Gyn go, I used to wonder the same thing, but now that I’m in school, everything is fascinating to me, and I can easily see how people go into all the fields.
Ro0sh, judging by what you said, I’m guessing you’re M2? And you have time to think about sex? Clearly you’re not working hard enough (I kid, I kid! …sort of).
My sex drive dropped some during nursing school, but that was the stress factor (I was working 35 hours a week as well) and I didn’t really notice it until I finished and saw it bounce back.
I agree with what others have posted that the work environment is just different.
Having said that, I will note that I’m not as quick to put my mouth on shit as I once was.
Ex-EMT POV…
Cutting womens clothes off loses alot of its appeal when it to better access the multiple stab wounds, compound fractures, or to get clean contact for EKG.
Also a hefty percentage of patients outside of OB are not exactly in “prime reproductive years”.