The beheading of Nick Berg was so shocking to me. I’ve seen full version of daniel pearl’s video before but I realized this recent video is just too horrendous to watch even though I haven’t even seen the whole edited version of it. I just couldn’t. I’m mostly ok with watching graphic natures of human anatomy during surgery no matter what kind of surgery it is. I even get excited and facinated by it. But I don’t think I want to see bloody human organs at least for a while after learning how gruesome manner this American civilian died. Reading a detail content of the video was enough for making sick to my stomach and imagine the way he died. I keep imagining what Nick Berg was thinking or how he was feeling right before his death and his painful torture, and what I would do if I were in his situation. Does this mean that I may have difficulty during med school? or becoming a doctor? I mean murder is one thing, surgical perform is another but I feel horrible after seeing that gruesome pictures and partial video of beheading over and over almost 30 times through media.
I feel so sorry for what happened to Nick and his family. Nick Berg was only 2yrs younger than I am.
It’s just too awful reality.
I don’t think being sickened by viewing a murder means that you will have trouble getting though medical school. You should be sickened, and it should bother you. That, however, has nothing at all to do with how you will deal with “gross” things in medical school.
I have been an EMT for several years. I have seen many “gruesome” things. Many of them bothered me at the time. Some still bother me when I think about them. However, the key is that there is nothing I could have done to change the outcome. The best I can do is to keep working to make a difference in outcomes that can be changed.
Amy
If you weren’t bothered by that, you definitely shouldn’t become a doctor. Being a good doctor isn’t about removing yourself from feeling horrified or sad; it’s about truly feeling those feelings but deciding not to be paralyzed by them and not to ignore them. Being “tough” is an immature response to difficulty. Truly being present to the pain and suffering of the world is the more difficult but more essential task.
j
I mean all day yesterday and today I had hard time even walking to the bathroom alone in my own house. This may sound a little ridiculous but I had to hold until I really really had to pee. I couldn’t even walk around my house especially in a dark room… but then it’s kinda weird. I only want to hear about and talk about this horrendous news and share with other people’s reaction. I went to outback steakhouse today with my family and my family was like “would you stop talking about that horrible story? We’re about to eat.” I don’t know… I may be overreacting to the story… curious or what…
Hi Fundee, I think it’s pretty horrible what’s happened to this poor man. I think have empathy does not mean you will have difficulty through medical school. For one, I feel certain that your encounters with execution-style beheading will be none. I think with 9/11 and everything that has happened following that, all these things hit very close to home and I think the difficulty you are dealing with has little to do with the actual anatomical act of beheading…it is the hate that it stands for. It’s an ugly world we live in…I suppose no uglier than the one we lived in before 9/11, but before we could ignore it, because it didn’t have to do with us…anyhow, it just reminds you that you have one life and NOW is the time to live it.
I think this was horrible and brutal! My husband spent the whole evening sick at his stomach.!
Kathy
From the sounds of your reaction, it may also be that this event is somehow triggering feelings about some other traumatic event in your past. It sometimes happens that traumatic events can trigger very upsetting feelings for people, and when these feelings start to be out of proportion to what everyone else is feeling, sometimes this is simply because something has struck you in a strong way; but sometimes it is because of a kind of resonance with earlier events in your life. (This may have nothing obvious to do with this event; the links between original traumatic events and the events that trigger post-traumatic reactions are often not immediately obvious at all.) If this keeps bothering you this strongly it may be something you want to go talk to a counselor about in order to make sure that you are not having a post-traumatic stress reaction. You may want to pay special attention to what kinds of feelings you’re having, what triggers them, and what they remind you of in your past.
Good luck on feeling better about the world. Remember, of the billions of people in the world, the vast majority would never want anything to do with such a thing and are horrified by it.
Again, good luck.
joe
I have a question. Are you all seeing these videos on Cable (I don’t have Cable) or have you seen them on websites? If the latter, I’d appreciate the web address.
Thank you.
Tahitian 3,
The website source was a Malaysian based host run by some guy named Lim. He has already pulled the website but isn’t giving out the name of the client who posted it until he “checks with his lawyers”.
Kathy
Quote:
The beheading of Nick Berg was so shocking to me. I’ve seen full version of daniel pearl’s video before but I realized this recent video is just too horrendous to watch even though I haven’t even seen the whole edited version of it. I just couldn’t. I’m mostly ok with watching graphic natures of human anatomy during surgery no matter what kind of surgery it is. I even get excited and facinated by it. But I don’t think I want to see bloody human organs at least for a while after learning how gruesome manner this American civilian died. Reading a detail content of the video was enough for making sick to my stomach and imagine the way he died. I keep imagining what Nick Berg was thinking or how he was feeling right before his death and his painful torture, and what I would do if I were in his situation. Does this mean that I may have difficulty during med school? or becoming a doctor? I mean murder is one thing, surgical perform is another but I feel horrible after seeing that gruesome pictures and partial video of beheading over and over almost 30 times through media.
I feel so sorry for what happened to Nick and his family. Nick Berg was only 2yrs younger than I am.
It’s just too awful reality.
Hi there,
Don’t worry about getting through medical school. You will not be exposed to anything so barbarian as a beheading. I am confident that with your experience in nursing, you will be just fine.
Natalie
Hi Joe, I’ve never had horrifying experience myself anywhere near to such a degree nor been through death of my family member or close friends but when I was in Korea, I’ve been physically beaten by a club or whip, and slapped by numerous Korean teachers on occasion from elementary to high school. But that applies to most Korean students. Not just me. Traditionally, physical punishment has been considered OK in order to discipline students in Korea. But I didn’t understand. I hated that. These teachers punish students in that way and humiliate in front of classmates or others for not paying attention during class, not doing homework… ear-piercing, dying hairs…etc. stupid things like that…
I was sorta a rebel when I was a teenager and hated our education system. I guess maybe that’s why I was not interested in school at all. I was F student and still could graduate from my top private high school. I don’t know how medical school would look upon this kind of personal experience in the past. That’s another story.
Anyway, I guess I tend to think excessively and too deep about pain, torture, and death of another human being and somehow assimilate them to myself by imagining those awful feelings as if I were in his/her situation.
I don’t know maybe I’m just too imaginative.
But I’m doing better now. At first I was almost paralyzed by the news knowing that it happened not long ago and the video was fairly recent. It is just too shocking and gory to watch that video of beheading.
Quote:
From the sounds of your reaction, it may also be that this event is somehow triggering feelings about some other traumatic event in your past. It sometimes happens that traumatic events can trigger very upsetting feelings for people, and when these feelings start to be out of proportion to what everyone else is feeling, sometimes this is simply because something has struck you in a strong way; but sometimes it is because of a kind of resonance with earlier events in your life. (This may have nothing obvious to do with this event; the links between original traumatic events and the events that trigger post-traumatic reactions are often not immediately obvious at all.) If this keeps bothering you this strongly it may be something you want to go talk to a counselor about in order to make sure that you are not having a post-traumatic stress reaction. You may want to pay special attention to what kinds of feelings you’re having, what triggers them, and what they remind you of in your past.
Good luck on feeling better about the world. Remember, of the billions of people in the world, the vast majority would never want anything to do with such a thing and are horrified by it.
Again, good luck.
joe