Trillian - that's EXACTLY why I found having to witness the procedure (twice in one day) as a student so distressing. The parents in my situation were given a choice to be there or leave and they chose to leave. I know that sounds judgemental of me, I don't mean to be and I understand parents not wanting to see their kids in pain but it really upset me. It's probably not representative of what most parents do (or would want to do like Cathy), and most probably do stay but parents leaving is what I saw. It might not have been so bad an experience for me, if the parents making the choice to have the procedure done on their baby had chosen to stay and comforted their child (remember that the ones I saw did not have pain relief - they screamed until they were purple).

ETA: In hindsight, I should have been more assertive and left myself. I knew at the outset that I didn't want to see it (and medical procedures like that have nothing to do with my training), but being a student on placement there was a lot of pressure to "put my best foot forward".