General Adaptation Syndrome

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Recommended: REFLECTION ABOUT physiological stress

Imagine an incoming ambulance coming to the drop-off section of an E.R., there are surgeons, doctors, residents, and a interns all waiting to help save lives. Unfortunately, the surgeon has been experiencing stress over the past couple of days. Her stressor, the thing causing the stress, has been the chief of surgery. The chief has been riding her back about teaching her interns more. As a result, once the ambulance gets there and is reading the stats aloud she is not focused.
Stress, which is a response to perceived threats or challenges resulting from stimuli or events that cause strain, caused the surgeon to be unfocused which puts the patients life in risk. The type of stress that she is experiencing is distress. Distress is the stress response to …show more content…

GAS stands for General Adaptation Syndrome. This concept analyzes the patterns of psychological reactions to stressors that include the alarm stage, resistance stage, and exhaustion stage (Light et al., 2014). A stressor other than the chief in this situation is the crisis that is happening. The ambulance is bringing in patients with critical injuries that need serious attention and fast. The first stage would be the alarm stage. This involves the surgeon recognizing that the ambulance has brought in patients with critical injuries. The second stage is resistance. During this stage the surgeon is doing all that she can do to save the patients life. Lets say the patient needed a long surgery; during this stage the surgeon would perform surgery. The surgeon would be coping with the stressor (Light et al., 2014). The last stage would be exhaustion. During this stage, the surgeon has been in surgery for hours. Her hands are cramping up, her neck is growing stiff, and she is tired. As stated in the textbook, this stage involves the “depletion of the body’s resources, which results in vulnerability to illnesses, physical exhaustion, and even death” (Light et al.,

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