When I Tell You I’m an ER Doctor
Don’t Ask Me the Worst Thing I’ve Seen
Whenever I tell someone I’m an ER doctor, I almost always get the same two responses.
The first is:
“You must be an adrenaline junkie.”
The second is:
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?”
Both of those miss what the job really is.
The adrenaline one has some truth to it. There are moments of intensity, and I think a lot of ER doctors are comfortable in those moments—being the ones making decisions when things matter.
But most of the time, that’s not what the job looks like.
Most of the time you’re sitting at a computer. Reviewing labs. Putting in orders. Reassessing patients.
It’s steady, methodical work and the adrenaline only comes in short bursts.
The other question—the one I find more difficult—is:
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen?”
The problem is, people don’t actually want the answer to that question.
And it’s not something we want to talk about.
It’s a little like asking a combat veteran if they’ve seen someone die in war. If they have, it’s probably something deeply personal. Maybe it was someone they knew. Maybe it’s something they’ve worked hard to process or move past.
The same is true in the ER.
The worst things we see are the worst parts of humanity. Terrible things happening to people. Sometimes things people have done to each other. Sometimes things no one could have prevented.
They’re not stories you tell casually.
So I usually avoid the question or give a safer answer—a story that’s strange or uncomfortable, but not devastating.
Typically, if you ask me, I’ll just say: “We see everything.”
And leave it at that.
Because when you start to talk about the real things, it changes the room.
And honestly, I don’t want to relive those moments either.
A more interesting question—the one I get less often—is:
“How do you do it?”
How do you function in those situations?
For me, the answer is that you have to change how you think in the moment.
When you’re dealing with something truly terrible, you can’t approach it fully as a human experience.
You can’t sit there thinking, this is someone’s child or this is someone’s life.
Not in that moment.
Because if you do, you freeze.
You lose the ability to act.
So instead, you shift into something more structured. More procedural.
You break everything down into steps.
What needs to happen next?
What’s the priority?
What can I do right now?
It becomes almost mechanical.
One step at a time.
You focus on the process so you can do your job as well as possible.
Because in those moments, that’s what matters. You can’t afford to get overwhelmed by the full weight of what’s happening.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t feel it.
It just means you delay it.
Because afterward—when things slow down—it comes back.
The reality of what just happened.
The people involved.
The weight of it.
That’s the part that stays with you. That’s the part that makes the job hard.
Learning how to carry it without letting it break you is what makes the job hard. It’s why not just anyone can do it.
For me, writing is part of that process. It’s how I try to remain not sick.