KevinMd MD discusses the role vicarious traumatization may have played in the Fort Hood massacre by Nidal Malik Hasan, a physician who opened fire on his fellow soldiers.
One reason may be so-called compassion fatigue, also known as vicarious traumatization or secondary traumatization. According to the Psychiatric Times, the condition is defined as “indirect exposure to trauma through a firsthand account or narrative of a traumatic event. The vivid recounting of trauma by the survivor and the clinician’s subsequent cognitive or emotional representation of that event may result in a set of symptoms and reactions that parallel PTSD (e.g., re-experiencing, avoidance and hyperarousal). Secondary traumatization is also referred to as compassion fatigue and vicarious traumatization.”
Wow. I'm shocked. What this sounds like to me is a doctor going crazy. Did he get vicarious traumatization because his patients had a hard life story to tell? When my patients tell me stories of their difficult lives, I find them interesting and intriguing. I find they add an element of excitement to an otherwise routinely unexciting doctor process. I don't find myself turning into Rambo.
I've had my fair share of vets tell me about the battles they've fought. A few have described in vivid detail the gunshot wounds or the stabbings that scar their body. And yet, I've never felt like putting a cap in anyone's head.
Hot Air gives their opinion on the matter, and I bet you can tell what their thoughts are.
Hot Air gives their opinion on the matter, and I bet you can tell what their thoughts are.
So then, in order to avoid the terrifying realities of war, he unleashes the terrifying realities of war on a bunch of people. Lovely. Since that article was published yesterday, there are dozens more that seem to be trying to diagnose PTSD once removed, suggesting that the trauma he heard about while engaging in patient care “infected” him as well. We can’t know that right now, though anything is possible. But I will return the favor (with equally invalid medical credentials) and diagnose the media with Factitous Disorder by Proxy.
If I were a bettin' man, I would guess that our mass murdering physician had some other underlying diagnosis that, like most physicians out there, he hid from his family, friends and medical community. Things are not always as they seem.
