[correnos]

An EMT friend described her take as, you need empathy in order to help people, but you need to be able to switch it off because sometimes what you're about to do is going to hurt them.

It's like any of our instinctual responses. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it's in the way.

[KozmoNau7]

It's not really switching it off as such, it's more that you have to "long-term empathize" with the person you're helping.

Setting a broken bone or popping a joint back in to place will hurt right now, but the consequences of not doing it will hurt the person a lot more over time. So you do inflict pain on them right in the moment, which is certainly unpleasant to do, but in the hope that the overall pain and discomfort for them will be significantly lessened.

At least that's how a friend of mine (former firefighter) put it.