Tips for a difficult death

[u/Amazing-Ad8160]

New attending. Had a gruesome death of a little boy happen in front of me the other day. I will spare the specific details but it was a penetrating trauma. Peds trauma cracked his chest, chest tubes, whole blood, blood on the floor, fingers in the wounds to stop the bleeding, the whole deal. Screaming parents and grandparents afterword. Have two sons similarly aged and I can’t get this out of my head to function normally at home. Just so happened to happen right before a week off so haven’t been back to work yet. Seen what seems like tons of deaths at this point and was never affected to this degree . Never seen a traumatic death of a healthy child though (seen pediatric codes but chronically Ill kids on borrowed time) Any tips for getting over it? How do you deal with bad deaths and making sure you don’t develop ptsd/burn out? I love what I do but if this was any weekly occurrence I would quit.

[u/Popular_Course_9124]

I had an infant code the other day that was just a couple months younger than my youngest. I would do what you can over the next 24 48 hours to try to process how you're feeling, talk to your spouse or family if they're receptive, maybe write some things down in a journal about how you're feeling. It's important to get those feelings out and you don't want to bottle them up. Time heals all wounds but I don't think we ever forget the children we see die in front of us. Feel free to message me if you would like to talk. Sorry you're going through this. What you're feeling right now is totally normal.