Do doctors/surgeons have non-sexual pleasure in some procedures?

Do you think Doctors may have a {obviously NON-SEXUAL} pleasure about exams, procedures and surgeries, but still a pleasure, a certain {"rush"} mixed with "power" when they are operating for instance? I found this amazing statement in a real doctor's blog:

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"The other day, I was lucky to watch a vaginal hysterectomy in action. Its a procedure where the uterus is taken out through the vagina without the usual abdominal incision we often see in a transabdominal hysterectomy. What happens in the procedure is that, the cervix is pulled outside the vagina, an incision is made through the distal 1/3 of the cervix and the uterus is pulled from the inside.

Wonderful isnt it? I didn get to finish the entire operation coz i got a text that the CS that I am to assist is about to start. I dont know with vaginas and the whole female reproductive tract that amazes me, but it always is fun doing ORs with them. I think I'm really into OB-GYNE. hmmmm."

http://nrqpapa.blogspot.com/2007/09/vagies-pronounciate-vahgeez.html

this blog entrance has some graphic images of the vaginal hysterectomy so CAUTION

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****Moderator note: I've revised this original post in the { } to reflect what I think the member is asking. See my comments in my post below. Chester ****

Text removed by the author - me - who should, as a Moderator, know better.

Ok i 'm really sorry! I only choosed badly the word "lust" i think( even if I started to speak about a " non obviously sexual pleasure"). I am interested in knowing about "power" that doctors and surgeons may feel doing their practice. I know medical practice is a very skilled and complex practice and medical professionals have all my respect.

Fell free to remove the topic as a moderator or tell me to do it,

best

amaral

I think what amaral is asking about in his question is partly if medical personnel get some sort of pleasure or satisfaction out of parts of their profession, like I do when I see a student suddenly grasp a concept that he had not before. I get really excited when I see them understand something or make connections between ideas/concepts. And if I squeeze that student's shoulder in my excitement (because you don't dare hug a student these days), there is ZERO sexual attraction to that student.

I think he's also asking about the power doctors feel when with patients, if they feel any at all. I know there are people who get a "rush" or feel powerful from their work in other professions. My father is a US Merchant Marine Captain (retired), sailed ocean-going dry cargo and container ships for 30 years. While I don't think he was on a "power trip" when he commanded a ship, I know there are people who do experience that or who go into certain professions because of the status and respect it gives them.

I may not have understood you correctly, amaral, but that's my take on your original post. Feel free to correct ME if I didn't understand you.

Uh, NO, we definitely don't get a power rush. After all, most patients come to us for help or to make sure everything is alright. We're always happy to help, and we do get satisfaction from it, but it isn't a power thing.

It's not like were a bunch of cops beating a suspect with a club.

Thank you Chester. Your understanding is quite correct ( and I must admit that sometimes my english doesn't help ).

Yes, I'm talking about 2 different things: an example - an artist, a painter or a sculptor have sometimes or allways different degrees of pleasure when working with the materials, oil paints for instance ( I am an artist myself so I know what I'm talking about in here ). OK in my experience I have had sometimes ( not allways) great amounts of pleasure in painting and touching feling specially Oil paint.

This pleasure I sometimes feel is obviously non sexual... but I must admit that sometimes there is a voluptuousness ( and this was the word i wanted to use instead of "lust), and that feeling is sometimes almost sensual, well it has it's own sensuality... for me.

Is it possible that a doctor can feel something of the kind when dealing with a patient? doing an exam or another medical procedure?

Second question is really about power. As you said " I know there are people who get a "rush" or feel powerful from their work in other professions", so I'm curious about doctors may feel something like that and even have "power trips" like you said.

Power is may also have a very sensual conection, so basically what I'm enquiring about is the possibility of a sensual experience in real Medical Profession, ocasionally and I repeat NOT SEXUAL!

Amaral, I believe the "power rush" you describe is a side effect of high self esteem. If a person is gifted and performs extremely well usually they will be complimented for it, and the more gifted they are the more compliments they will receive. It soon becomes a learned behaviour and it forms an important part to their future performance as they will desire to continue to receive the same level of praise, if not more. I suggest that if a doctor (or nurse) does have a power rush it is as a result of them receiving praise for a job well done, in their case helping someone in need or suffering, and not because they are in control.

I've only read this thread today, so I'll skip over the first few posts and simply reply to amaral's last post of 23rd March.

Amaral -- yes, I think I know exactly what you mean and, speaking as a medical professional, yes, absolutely. When I'm examining a patient (and in my line of work this rarely involves much intimate exposure) there is sometimes a definite enjoyment in the process. But for me this has nothing to do with the patient as a person, or with sexual enjoyment of their body. Rather it's the satisfaction of a craftsman working with his/her hands on material. Like you said with the oil paint, this comes from the dialogue between how you're expecting your materials to behave and how they actually do behave when you handle them, and how you respond to that.

I mean no disrespect to my patients by referring to their bodies as material, nor immodesty in describing myself as a craftsman; just an analogy that may help others understand how we, or at least I, feel in our work. We have to treat bodies as physical objects in order to do our jobs, but there's no shame in taking a 'voluptuous' pleasure in engaging in skilled physical interaction with bodies, oil paints, wood, a musical instrument, etc., etc....

cd.

@Amaral I think you're referring to the concept of Flow.

(from Wiki)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29

Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a

feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process

of the activity. Proposed by Csíkszentmihályi the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.

According to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning.

In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but

positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in

the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task although flow is also described (below) as a deep focus on nothing but the activity - not even oneself or one's emotions.

He has written an entire book about Flow and creativity actually 😃 (Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1996), Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention) I read it, but if you're interested I'd personally recommend his first, more general book (Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1990), Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience)

So an an artist you have no problems with motivation then? We should talk 😃

@ba3003: no, it's all good - nice to have confirmation from the profession... 😃

In my earlier post, I kind of spoke from mostly my perspective as an OR nurse. Yes, it is wonderful to be appreciated, and as I said before we don't get a power rush out of helping people or performing various procedures in real life. Real patients are NOT our submissives to play with.

From the standpoint of many surgeons I know and knew, I can say that they didn't seem to get a power rush out of it either. Everything was all in a day's work. The truth is, I worked with world class surgeons at Columbia, and most of the surgeons I know, KNEW when they did beautiful surgeries and they really didn't need anybody to tell them (I could actually say they didn't care) if anybody told them how great it was. THEY knew it was great and I guess they had big enough egos so that was enough, which is NOT to say they weren't kind and caring doctors because they were. They were simply self confident enough not to require others to tell them a great job was done. Now a psychologist or psychiatrist would probably need some warm and fuzzy accolades.

Interesting posts, and would agree that if they have the capability and desire to do a good job in their profession they would feel empowered and understand when they had done a good job.