Joel Salinas: The Doctor Who Feels The Pain Of Patients - Alternative View

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Joel Salinas: The Doctor Who Feels The Pain Of Patients - Alternative View
Joel Salinas: The Doctor Who Feels The Pain Of Patients - Alternative View

Video: Joel Salinas: The Doctor Who Feels The Pain Of Patients - Alternative View

Video: Joel Salinas: The Doctor Who Feels The Pain Of Patients - Alternative View
Video: Doctor Who Feels Patients’ Pain – Literally! 2024, November
Anonim

Dr. Salinas suffers from a condition called mirror synesthesia. When he touches a person in pain, his brain recreates the same sensations in his own body.

Joel Salinas is a neurologist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. A man uses his condition to better understand his patients.

When Joel was in his third year in medical college, he experienced something strange. Seeing a man whose heart stopped, he immediately fell to the floor from severe chest pain. When the patient died, Salinas experienced a "strange feeling of peace and quiet."

What happened to Salinas is called synesthesia. In this state, the feelings and sensations of a person merge with each other. For example, someone hears and tastes music, or sees a written word and senses its color.

In this case, Joel perceives and feels the sensation of the person he sees or touches.

Childhood

Since childhood, Salinas found it difficult to adapt to the regular school environment. For example, he felt that the color of the bell was blue, and the numbers and letters had their own colors. Plus, he loved to hug - it gave him a sense of calm and security. Other children considered him strange and avoided him.

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When he grew up, he decided to go into medicine. After all, when someone felt good next to him, he also felt joy.

True, Joel never considered his peculiarity to be something unique. Only after meeting in 2005 with an expert neurologist V. S. Ramachandranoi Salinas found out that his condition was a new type of synesthesia. The so-called "mirror touch" allows him to feel what is happening to others.

Medical career

However, this condition seriously interfered with his career - he physically felt the suffering of patients, and during operations it seemed to him that it was his stomach that was being cut. When the patient died, he felt severe nausea.

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Then the doctor developed his own strategy - during the appointment, he did not look at the patient, but completely focused on his own feelings. Either he was looking at his sleeve or his boots.

As a successful neurologist, Salinas does not consider synesthesia to be a painful condition. Moreover, he is sure that it was she who helped him build a successful career. Indeed, thanks to synesthesia, he can so accurately and deeply understand the feelings and sensations of his patients.