From Trauma to Triumph: Navigating Emotional Detachment in Healthcare

Healthcare providers silently carry an emotional burden that few outside the profession truly understand. In this raw and honest conversation, we pull back the curtain on a critical survival skill that medical professionals develop: emotional compartmentalization.

When you're coding a pediatric patient one moment and offering a warm blanket to another patient ten minutes later, you learn to switch emotional gears instantaneously. This ability to separate feelings from actions becomes second nature, but at what cost? As we reveal, "We put things away every day that we work," creating what feels like a backpack full of stones that grows heavier with each unprocessed experience.

Drawing from our combined decades in trauma ICUs and emergency departments, we explore how providers cope with witnessing more death and suffering than anyone should bear. The dark humor that outsiders might find disturbing serves as an essential survival mechanism. When we say, "We become emotionally detached because that's how we deal with things," it's not callousness—it's preservation.

This emotional compartmentalization inevitably bleeds into personal relationships. Many healthcare workers find themselves sitting in their cars after shifts, desperately trying to decompress before walking through their front doors. Family members wonder why we aren't more affected by tragedies or seem dismissive of minor complaints. The truth? We've trained ourselves to separate emotions from actions to function effectively in crisis.

For healthcare professionals listening, our most important message is this: give yourself grace. The emotions wouldn't exist if it wasn't okay to feel them. And our strongest recommendation? "Get into therapy before you think you need it"—because by the time you recognize you're drowning, you're already deep in the weeds.

Ready to prioritize your mental wellbeing? Reach out to us at hamiltontelehealthcom or charihealth.com and take the first step toward balancing professional compartmentalization with emotional health.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Healthcare's Emotional Burden
• 1:53 Emotional Compartmentalization in Healthcare
• 4:59 The Cost of Carrying Trauma
• 9:04 Coping Through Detachment and Humor
• 13:36 Finding Balance and Seeking Help
• 17:01 Advice for New Healthcare Providers

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of tattoos and telehealth. I'm Kelly White with Kari Health and, of course, I'm joined by my fabulous colleague, ms Nicole Baldwin. Excuse me, this visit does, or this podcast does not constitute a patient provider relationship. So last week we had an incredible opportunity to visit with a professional about burnout. But there are some things that kind of come along with that that we wanted to highlight today and, nicole, this is something that's very kind of near and dear to you.

Speaker 2: 0:44

You want to take off and chat about that yeah, so something that, as we are, kelly and I both come from trauma ICU ER, we come from that world and probably one of the most difficult things is we've seen more death than anyone should ever have to see, right, the police officers, the firemen, the nurses, the doctors. We see more of that than anyone can probably even imagine, and especially working through COVID. But even before that, you know we see people at their at their worst, right when, when, when you're at your worst, you're in the ER, right, or you know we see people at their at their worst right, when, when, when you're at your worst, you're in the ER, right, or you're physically physically and mentally at your worst yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:31

Both, yeah, both of those for sure. And so as a, as a healthcare provider, we become very I don't know if I want to say I've become and this is like just in life in general, not necessarily just at the hospital, but we become very like where we keep our emotions. We're very good at stop moving on, stop what we're doing moving on. And that comes from being in one room where we're coding a pediatric patient or not, it doesn't matter, an adult and then the next room, over 10 minutes later, it's a patient who we're, you know, trying to give a warm blanket to and a turkey sandwich. But you don't carry right, you don't carry that same emotion in one room that you carried in the next. And so, let's say, we are trying to save a patient, and then our next patient is, let's say, you know, a 10 year old girl with asthma attack who's not necessarily in life, threatening danger. But we don't bring that same. We come in with a positive attitude, with a a gentle spirit, at the same time understanding that we just came from a situation where we were trying to save a life and things were very, very grim, dire. Maybe they died, maybe they didn't. Regardless, we go from such dire adrenaline situations that literally life and death to in the snap of a finger. We're in front of a patient where our smile, in our, the way that we interact with them, is super important. It's super important to the way that they see this.

Speaker 2: 3:17

Uh, visits, you know, nobody wants to go to the ER and have a, a grouchy provider, you know, nurse, doctor, whatever, and so we try to make them to be as warm as possible so that they're not scared. Right, so we've become, they say, like the ER nurses, we become jaded, right, we, we, we become jaded and nothing really bothers us. And I, and and it's not true, but it is true, you know, it's like we, we are trained to, to feel, we, you know, we're in a situation we feel one way and in the snap of a finger, we're expected to and not expected to. But we should not saying it's right or wrong.

Speaker 2: 3:57

We go to another room where we have to be like, you know, because that's what's in the best interest of our patients, and so we always want to take care of patients in the best way. That's, that's best for them, and in one room it may be one thing, and then the next room it's best for them, and in one room it may be one thing, and then the next room it's a completely different situation, and so I think, as providers, we get good at nothing really affecting us too much from an emotional standpoint, and I think that we struggle with that and it carries into our home lives and it carries into our personal life as well. What are your thoughts on that? Am I rambling here? What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 1: 4:34

No, I think I think you've hit the nail on the head, but I think that what's important for um not only other providers to hear us talk about, but is but for the public in general to hear us say is that we do care, we do have feelings and we do take that home home and while we are expected to turn that off and go to the next room and turn that off and go to the next room and turn that off and go to the next room, that does weigh on us and over time you know that contributes to like we talked about last week with melissa um contributes to burnout, and I think that it just goes back to showing how critical it is for providers to be able to recognize that in themselves so they can reach out for help, so they can reach out to someone to be able to share those emotions with, because as providers I don't know about Unicle, but there were so many nights when and I say nights because by the end of your shift it is night to come home and leave it at the door.

Speaker 1: 5:29

You pull in the garage and you sit in your car for an extra two or three minutes because you're trying to decompress and you have to leave it at the door before you walk into your family, for whatever happened and that is, it is a lot and it is significant and I think that we as providers take for granted that over the years of doing this work we learn to cope with what's happening from one room to the next, to the next, you know, like whether that's in the ER, whether that's in the ICU, or you know, when I finished up my in-hospital career in neurosurgery, you know we may have a gunshot victim in OR1.

Speaker 1: 6:06

And then turn right around and have just your day-to-day bread and butter spinal fusion coming up next. You know, and after you walked out of this very traumatic, very, very bloody, very terrible, emotional, everybody's on a high, from this gunshot to the head. Now you have to regroup and step back and then go to pre-op and see the family and smile and talk about the spinal fusion and do all the things and you're just like you're still running, your adrenaline is still going, you're still literally covered in the blood of the patient you were just with and it makes it very hard.

Speaker 2: 6:40

I think we, we, we don't have time to decompress and we don't have time to deal with things, and so it's just like carrying this heavy backpack, you know, a stone goes in the back. My pastor was talking about one time, about how we carry things that we weren't meant to carry, and these are little things that, because we don't have time to deal with, maybe, maybe, maybe we feel like everybody tried to die on us today, right, but when we go home, our kids still want uh, they're super happy to see us, you know, um, you know what's for dinner, you know. So you just put it and you just put it away, you just put it in the back, you just put it in your backpack and you just, and you just truck on, and over years and years and years, we just it's all just, you just never have the time to decompress and deal because you're running, because it it just the nature of the beast, and so I'm it's not that we are saying, um, that it's bad or it's good or indifferent, it just is like it.

Speaker 2: 7:40

Just it just is. And I think awareness for providers to say it's okay to feel overwhelmed, it's okay to feel, um, just like you've kind of walled off. And I think that that's where therapy as we met with Melissa last week therapy for providers is super important because we put things away. Every day that we work, we are putting things. You know, maybe one patient, one patient, cuss you out from up one side and down the other because maybe they weren't, you know, you know have liver issues and they're not in the right mind, or maybe they are in the right mind, they're just mean. But then you go to the next patient and it's a sweet little lady you just want to take home with you, right? So it's so polar opposites, the dealings that we deal with and we have no time to compress, and so sometimes that comes out at home in frustration. It comes out with, you know, over time.

Speaker 2: 8:38

But eventually we do get jaded and it's just our coping, it's the way that we cope, going from one thing to the next, without any explanation, without anything, just, you're just like a robot, right, you're just going, but robots don't have those emotions. So, you know, it's, um, it's definitely difficult. We become emotionless, almost we don't. We, you know, we can't be crying. If we're trying to, we can't be crying, we can't be falling apart, right? So how do you? You know, nurses will joke about things and people say that's morbid. But then doctors too, you know, we'll joke about things that normal people would joke about, or we'll, you know, make a funny over something that really, to normal people, isn't funny. But when you're in this world, things it's just how we cope, it's just how we cope, and so I think that therapy is a really good thing. Um, you?

Speaker 1: 9:35

know, I think my mom used to get incredibly mad at me whenever I first came out of school and became an ICU nurse and those first couple of years of learning kind of how to cope with that and how to deal with the emotions that came along with it. With that, and how to deal with the emotions that came along with it, you know I would. I learned how from those older nurses and they were amazing. They were incredible. They took me under their wing and taught me these things. But, as you said you, you learn to joke and you learn to use that as your tool to get through day to day.

Speaker 1: 10:05

But things would fascinate me, like you know, the, the major triple A that ruptured when it came through the you know what I mean Like the little things. You're just like, wow, that is so cool. I got to see this today and I got to see that today and my mom would get furious with me because she'd be like that person was suffering or that person's family was so upset and how can you be excited about that and how can you be? That's terrible. I'm like, well, yeah, that's trauma.

Speaker 2: 10:31

I love it.

Speaker 1: 10:32

I love it, yeah, but for me it was exciting because I was a new nurse and I was learning and it was cool and even all the way up until I left the hospital setting in neurosurgery. I know how tragic a gunshot wound to the head is, but that sounds terrible. It does sound terrible when they, when they wheel the bedside um intracranial drill for to drill burr holes at the bedside.

Speaker 2: 10:58

When I see that car come out, I'm like all sorts of excited. I'm like let's do it, we're going to drill in the head, but we separate it from the person. So it's not that we lack compassion, because we don't even tie it to a person. It's a head, it's a brain, it's not. We disassociate it from emotion and so to us it's a person. So, example it has ruined. Being in medicine has ruined haunted houses for me right, because now when I go and I see guts and it's like in, like a haunted house, I'm like oh, that's a bad liver, like it's not even scary because we do, but that's. We don't look at it as a scary thing, we look at it as it's an organ, it's, it's a thing. It's a thing. It's not a human, it's a thing. And so we are very good at disassociating that. Because you, like, you're saying you see it as a gunshot wound to this head, not not. You know Bobby, who you know is, you know a college student and was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Speaker 1: 12:02

We don't know any of that. We don't know any of that.

Speaker 2: 12:14

And we'd probably rather not. You know, we just know it, as we're trying to save this head, this person, but we can't. We don't have any emotional attachments to this person. I will tell you when my dad went into surgery for his total replacements, I did not want to be in the OR for that because I didn't think that I would be able to handle it. Just the way that we move things around, the way that we hammer and the way that we saw, because I have an emotional connection and so we've learned to not have emotional connections because that's how we deal with things. Yeah, so it's very tough to struggle that at home and, you know, in the hospital you know.

Speaker 1: 12:41

I think that the whole point of it is, you know, kind of what Nicole and I are trying to trying to get at is one, it's okay In that moment to disassociate your feelings professionally and personally, because that's what we want to do to survive in our field.

Speaker 1: 12:57

And then, two, it's okay to step back and then feel those emotions If that is what you need to do to get through the day. Those emotions wouldn't exist if it wasn't okay to feel them. So it's okay to feel those emotions. After the fact, the struggle becomes where and how do we blend the disassociation and the feelings of the emotions and how do we cope with knowing that those two have to separate the moment we walk through the doors of the clinic, the ER, the hospital or whatever it is, and the moment that we pull in our carport or driveway or garage and come home to our families. And then also, I think what's the most important thing is having grace. Number one for ourselves, knowing that that's a real emotion and it's okay. And then, number two, for our families, to recognize that you got to have a little bit of grace for us Sometimes, at the end of the day, when we're not super emotional about something You're like why aren't you more upset about this? Well, I've kind of learned to turn that off.

Speaker 2: 13:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. My ex-husband would say oh, I got this. Oh, you know, just like this. I'm like seriously, unless your head is down, your feet are up and you have 85 drips and six tubes, you're fine, you're fine, like you're fine. You just don't care Exactly Not really about your little paper cut. I know, I don't.

Speaker 1: 14:22

I don't and I'm not trying to be rotten.

Speaker 2: 14:26

I just don't like suck it up Like you know what I mean. And so we become. You know we joke about it today because we're still friends, but we have to leave our emotions at the door, because if I felt an emotion to that person or that patient, I don't know that I would be able to revert back to my training, because emotions take over, right, like emotions take over when they're. When they come, they're strong, whether it's an anxiety attack, whether it's being tearful, whether it's being angry. It's hard to control emotions. And how can I control emotions and do what I'm trained to do? So the emotions have to have to stay out. You have to learn to put them out so that you can do your job, because if there's an emotional attachment, it's going to skew your, it's going to skew the way that you're doing things right. Like you know, I would do things, you know, differently because I have an emotional attachment, and so we learned to not have it.

Speaker 1: 15:22

For sure, for sure, absolutely. So what would you say if you were talking to a new provider? What tips or tricks would you give them to be able to cope with what they're about to face in the next two, three, five, 10 years of their career?

Speaker 2: 15:39

I would probably say to give yourself some grace and to get into therapy before you think you need it. Yeah, Do it before you think you need it, because by the time that you feel or know that you need it, you're way in the weeds. You're way in the weeds and I think we're getting to understand as a culture better that therapy can be good Even if you just it's a very light session. Nobody has to have a deep session every time but having a place to go to at least vent and, you know, get some understanding of why you're feeling the way that you're feeling, because blocking off your emotions doesn't do good for your home life. It just doesn't.

Speaker 1: 16:22

Yeah, it doesn't do good.

Speaker 2: 16:23

We become very difficult to live with, um, and easily emotionally detached If we're not careful, if we're, if we're, if we're not careful, we can definitely become just emotionally detached because that's what we're used to dealing with.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 16:41

Thank you all for joining us today. That's all. We wanted to just mention a couple of things today that we, you know, as providers deal with, as nurses deal with, doctors deal with them. We, you know, everybody in the healthcare field deals with this, um, but we just want to just really just bring awareness to it and that there is help out there. And, um, even virtual health is great, even virtual health. So, um, if you have any questions or comments, you can certainly reach out to us. You can find me at Hamilton telehealthcom and Kelly, you can find her at Kari health dot com. C-h-a-r-i health dot com. I looked at your website last night. It's beautiful. All right, guys, see you next time.

Speaker 1: 17:19

Bye.