Anne, two memories will never leave me.
Firstly, my mother was required to spend the occasional evening with geriatric people who had chosen to live in their own home, and she brought me with her one evening. I would have been 12 or 13, and I recall that the lady told her the same story over and over again. After about the seventh or eighth time of this, I had to go into the kitchen as I couldn't stand it any more, yet hours and hours later she was still telling my mother the same story, and my mother's reaction continued to be like she was hearing it for the first time.
Secondly, my aunt lived who was a radiographer lived with us while I was growing up and, because we lived very close to the local hospital, she was often on call. One Saturday morning she was called in and, when she returned, I asked her casually what it was. She said that it was a lad in his late teens who'd come off his motorbike, broken his neck, and had actually died on the X-ray table. I was speechless! But she sat me down and explained to me that she had to treat it with completely dispassionately otherwise she'd never make it through the day.
Like I said, total respect.