Have you ever been squeamish?

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Dr.Cait

Dr.Cait

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I'm just wondering, since you all work on cases usually involving blood or vomit, have you ever been squeamish? Personally, I tend to have a problem with vomit, but I can be OK with it.
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I don't like poop.

The worst was when this big dude on my psych rotation, lunged at me, bear-hugged me, and nearly gave me a hicky... dude, he got part of my earlobe... :scared:
 
I'm on an L&D rotation right now. I HATE it when the mother $hits just as the baby is coming out. I realize defecation is a normal and natural process, etc., etc. but that doesn't mean I need to watch it!

:thumbdown:

- H
 
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I never have really gotten squeamish, but every once in a while if I watch a nurse put in an 18 gauge in the AC I get a twinge in my stomach, believe it or not. Dunno why, no other procedure (watching it or doing it), does it to me.

Other choice moments:

I didn't realize the amount of FLUID that comes out of a woman during delivery. Who knew there was so much mucus? And whats' up with amniotic fluid?

And WOAH I never saw pictures of the placenta in medical school, but when I saw the first one "plop" into that big blue bucket, I swear I thought they were delivering an alien from H.R. Gigger. Its extra-nasty since the placenta is body temperature when it comes out too.

Semi-solid stool is pretty gross but I have a bad sense of smell so it doesnt' get to me like it does the nurses. BUT when they spray that strawberry $hit on it I think that's pretty gag-inducing.

Q
 
We use EMSTAT, and in among the nursing screens there is a place to chart just about anything. I once emptied a bedpan so nasty, so foul, so nightmarish that, when I confirmed the pt was in for a GI complaint and it might be remotely relevant, I felt it only right and proper that I would be exacting in my detailed description of that poo. I should not be the only one to be so familiar with it.
 
It's wierd but I think one of the grossest things is irrigating the ear canal for impacted wax. There is just something about this that makes me want to hurl.

I do well with feces and vomit. Blood and guts are cool..no problem here. Just the ear wax and the occasional diabetic rotting limb.
 
Way to spread the joy Febrifuge!

Sometimes watching the 18 gauge in the AC gets me too. Not when I am putting one in, only when I am watching someone else do it. Don't ask me why.
 
A friend of mine is fearful of cotton, and it turns out it's relatively common... just causes a few specific problems if you're a doc. No kidding -- this guy will run like a little scared grade 3 kid if you wield a Q-tip at him. He says the worst part of it is the texture -- he can't even put cotton on a wound without wearing two pairs of gloves, not just for the infectious disease precaution, but because of the feeling that wells up inside him, and once hit a nurse for putting cotton on his own arm after a routine boooster shot!

This did not stop us from having fun with him in college, though. We once put cotton like the kind you buy at Rite Aid in the big bags over all the door handles in our house (and i swear I'm not making this up) causing him to not leave the house for 12 hours until we felt sorry for him and realized it wasn't that funny and let him out for food and a washroom break. Yeah, we were mean bastards...
 
Hurl inducing activities?

I damn near lost it, and I mean I could assess both the flavor and volume of my bile, when I got the pleasure of "running the bowel" during an autopsy. Damn 27 year old prisoner didn't have the curtesy of taking a day of docusate before hanging himself. The smell and texture of that sh&t was disgusting. The autopsy tech, of course, thought that my green face was the greatest thing she'd seen that day.

Mom-poop really gets to me, too. Especially when you have to wallow in it to deliver the baby. Yuck.

Grossly angulated fractures used to get to me but apparently poo has displaced that in my hurl-center.

Take care,
Jeff
 
FoughtFyr said:
I'm on an L&D rotation right now. I HATE it when the mother $hits just as the baby is coming out. I realize defecation is a normal and natural process, etc., etc. but that doesn't mean I need to watch it!

how funny, this was my first thought when I saw the thread and you already wrote it down. squeamish, not really, but definitely looking to keep that fresh mommy manure off my shoes. The only part that really bothers me is that I can hear it as it comes out, like soft serve only different.

once in a while when I&Ding I get a little puny, but then other times I think it is pretty fun. just depends.
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Another vote for ear wax here. Irrigating ears is just NASTY.

I'm pretty much ok with most other stuff, although I feel a little weird watching chest tubes being put in when the patient is conscious. I had a spontaneous pneumo (actually a couple) and the experience of having a hole cut into your chest and then a giant tube shoved in there is horrible on so many levels. Watching another patient go through it is a bit to deva vu for me sometimes.
 
To paraphrase Lt. Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall's character) in "Apocalypse Now", there's nothing quite like the raunchy, rotten smell of the anaerobic pus in a pilonidal abcess that's ready to be drained bright and early in the morning. Nothing ordinarily gets to me, but one time after getting about 30cc's of pus out, I had the fleeting sensation that I might have to dash across the room to the sink. Then it passed.

Dr.Cait said:
I'm just wondering, since you all work on cases usually involving blood or vomit, have you ever been squeamish? Personally, I tend to have a problem with vomit, but I can be OK with it.
Click to expand...
 
beanbean said:
Another vote for ear wax here. Irrigating ears is just NASTY.

I'm pretty much ok with most other stuff, although I feel a little weird watching chest tubes being put in when the patient is conscious. I had a spontaneous pneumo (actually a couple) and the experience of having a hole cut into your chest and then a giant tube shoved in there is horrible on so many levels. Watching another patient go through it is a bit to deva vu for me sometimes.
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A big chest tube for a spontaneous pneumo? Where are they still teaching that? I've been using nothing but those awesome Cook pneumothorax catheters for spontaneous pneumos for years. Easy and considerably less uncomfortable for the patient. I suspect a much better recovery period as well.
 
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When I was a paramedic, I had a patient who had enucleated his eyeball - it was hanging there by the optic nerve, etc.

Only time I've ever thrown up on a patient......


They put it back in and he was OK, afterwords..
 
It's nice to see others going with the ear wax, I thought I was the only one.
 
The smell of stale infected urine makes me want to toss my cookies. Oh yeah, and the people with bowel obstructions who throw up ****. yum. :D
 
Sessamoid said:
A big chest tube for a spontaneous pneumo? Where are they still teaching that? I've been using nothing but those awesome Cook pneumothorax catheters for spontaneous pneumos for years. Easy and considerably less uncomfortable for the patient. I suspect a much better recovery period as well.
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Come on, veteran, nothing makes you queasy?!?!?!? Let us know!

Q
 
My pneumo was 17 yrs ago ( I was 19). I know the tube isn't that big, but when you're laying on the stretcher and someone says that is is going into your chest wall...it sure seems huge. Moral of the story: if you need a chest tube, its much better to be unconscious.
 
DOrk said:
The smell of stale infected urine makes me want to toss my cookies. Oh yeah, and the people with bowel obstructions who throw up ****. yum. :D
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"Seasoned" lab techs who can diagnose the offending microbe in a UTI by smelling the urine -> frightening and disgusting!
 
Sputum does it for me.
 
kungfufishing said:
FoughtFyr said:
I'm on an L&D rotation right now. I HATE it when the mother $hits just as the baby is coming out. I realize defecation is a normal and natural process, etc., etc. but that doesn't mean I need to watch it!

how funny, this was my first thought when I saw the thread and you already wrote it down. squeamish, not really, but definitely looking to keep that fresh mommy manure off my shoes. The only part that really bothers me is that I can hear it as it comes out, like soft serve only different.
Click to expand...

Soft serve :eek: The only thing I can think of that's made me squeemish is this post
Click to expand...
 
srlondon said:
To paraphrase Lt. Col. Kilgore (Robert Duvall's character) in "Apocalypse Now", there's nothing quite like the raunchy, rotten smell of the anaerobic pus in a pilonidal abcess that's ready to be drained bright and early in the morning. Nothing ordinarily gets to me, but one time after getting about 30cc's of pus out, I had the fleeting sensation that I might have to dash across the room to the sink. Then it passed.
Click to expand...

I had a sebacious cyst on my shoulder a few years back that needed to be drained...for me, I'm totally fine with blood, feces, vomit, etc., but the only thing that gets to me is the foul smelling pus. I felt bad for the GP who had to squeeze it all out of the cyst. But I also felt bad for myself, man that was an incredibly painful experience! This thing gave me intense pain even when I had a shirt over it, and then I had to have someone cut it open and squeeze. Ouch.
 
My problem has always been wearing a surgical mask. I don't know why but toward the start of every OR rotation I'd get woozy and have to leave the OR. It was never the subject matter, it was just the mask. You can imagine how easily convinced the surgeons were. I even got one well meaning talking to about how if "blood" bothered me so much I should look into something other than ER. To this day I've never gotten bothered by anything when I wasn't wearing a mask.

On the related topic of worst smells ever I was taking sign out one morning, so it's 2 ER attendings and about 6 ER residents, not a group easily offended by a smell. We were talking at the board and I stepped on the pedal for a trash can to toss something and It hit me. WHOOMP! This smell just enveloped me and was one of the worst experiences of my life. I looked up with this pained expression and one of my interns started to ask what was wrong. Then it hit them. I've never seen such an august body of physicians flee from something so fast. They all agreed that it was the worse smell of their lives as well. I don't know what it was. We think it was the sheets off the bed that an expired pt had been on for several hours with this fetid, diarrhea leaking out pre and post mortem. We'll never know for sure.
 
For me it is the street man smell. Dried urine, and the worst part is the feet. For some reason that combo odor really gets to me. It doesn't make me want to hurl, just run out of the room toward the nearest bath and body works.
 
As for squeamish things -- I just remembered I was on a medical missions trip in a remote area of Peru... some dude had some bad onchomycosis in his big toe or something. Surgeon did a digital block and had me the med student and one of the student RNs to take some plyers and yank the his toenail off... yeesh... that is just wrong.
 
The smell of the fluid that passes during a transurethral prostate resection is something that I will never get over. Blood and guts, no problem.
 
bulgethetwine said:
A friend of mine is fearful of cotton, and it turns out it's relatively common... just causes a few specific problems if you're a doc. No kidding -- this guy will run like a little scared grade 3 kid if you wield a Q-tip at him. He says the worst part of it is the texture -- he can't even put cotton on a wound without wearing two pairs of gloves, not just for the infectious disease precaution, but because of the feeling that wells up inside him, and once hit a nurse for putting cotton on his own arm after a routine boooster shot!

This did not stop us from having fun with him in college, though. We once put cotton like the kind you buy at Rite Aid in the big bags over all the door handles in our house (and i swear I'm not making this up) causing him to not leave the house for 12 hours until we felt sorry for him and realized it wasn't that funny and let him out for food and a washroom break. Yeah, we were mean bastards...
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HAHA!!! My poor cousin has the same issues with cotton. All these years I just thought she was strange. :smuggrin: Her biggest issue with it is when you take a cottonball and pull it apart in front of her. Her face gets all distorted and she throws her hands up. She says it's like nails down a chalkboard to her. :laugh:
 
I'm squeamish on so many levels, but I generally get through them fine. There is, however, one exception. And that is $hit. :eek: I just can't deal with it. The second it hits my nostrils, I'm done. The first time I ever smelled a lower GI bleed, I turned about 5 shades of green, and ran through the ED gagging my arse off. The only other incident that made me physically ill (in the wee hours of the a.m. when your stomach is queasy), was an exceptionally nasty woman who described her female problems to me and stated, "When I wipe, it's like butter." :eek: I couldn't eat butter for a month.
 
Three things still get me...

1: Ruptured globe - simply horrific when the jelly is oozing
2: Horribly angulated limbs - I can deal, but I could never be an orthopod
3: The occassional nasty trach - all gooed up with thick schmegma and begging to be suctioned

Other than that... not a whole lot makes my stomach turn ;)
 
Hands Down.... Foley Catheters!

5 years ago, I actually passed out watching a "training video" on how to place a urinary catheter. Then spent a few years as a tech placing them in the ER. The first one I ever placed was on a gentleman that was masterbating and shoving a car intenna up his urethra for enjoyment. That was a real treat. Nothing else seems to bother me, poop, vomit, trauma, nothing... but I never got used to the idea of anything going up someone's urethra. Its just not right I tell ya!
 
Wow I just read through this entire thread, its hilarious. Speaking of the cotton and the phobia, I once watched this show where this woman was so deathly afraid of aluminum foil she almost passed out!
Here are the things that gross me out:
1. Nasty trach sites with mucus and snot and everything else, and the patient is breathing and its blowing around, just asking to fly off and hit me in the face.
2. Morbid obesity...the ones that just come in with THE SMELL and skin folds with yeast infections and boils and objects hidden in them (I once heard of a patient who found her TV remote control in her skin fold). BARF!
3. Female patients who stick tampons/pads/paper towels, whatever they are in the mood for, up their vagina during their periods and forget/are lazy etc and come in a few weeks later cause they they smell or think somethings stuck and you have to dig it out.

A few more thoughts. I know pooping during birth is part of the natural process, but how do you avoid it? Is there something the mom can do before giving birth to avoid pooping during delivery. I doubt it, but just a thought.
 
joaquin13 said:
Wow I just read through this entire thread, its hilarious. Speaking of the cotton and the phobia, I once watched this show where this woman was so deathly afraid of aluminum foil she almost passed out!
Here are the things that gross me out:
1. Nasty trach sites with mucus and snot and everything else, and the patient is breathing and its blowing around, just asking to fly off and hit me in the face.
2. Morbid obesity...the ones that just come in with THE SMELL and skin folds with yeast infections and boils and objects hidden in them (I once heard of a patient who found her TV remote control in her skin fold). BARF!
3. Female patients who stick tampons/pads/paper towels, whatever they are in the mood for, up their vagina during their periods and forget/are lazy etc and come in a few weeks later cause they they smell or think somethings stuck and you have to dig it out.

A few more thoughts. I know pooping during birth is part of the natural process, but how do you avoid it? Is there something the mom can do before giving birth to avoid pooping during delivery. I doubt it, but just a thought.
Click to expand...


An enema upon arrival to the labour room usually takes care of the pooping. Or a cork. :D
 
mfrederi said:
the worst part is the feet.
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I don't know what it is about feet. I can watch any procedure and be just fine, as long as it doesn't involve feet. :scared:
 
docB said:
My problem has always been wearing a surgical mask. I don't know why but toward the start of every OR rotation I'd get woozy and have to leave the OR. It was never the subject matter, it was just the mask. You can imagine how easily convinced the surgeons were. I even got one well meaning talking to about how if "blood" bothered me so much I should look into something other than ER. To this day I've never gotten bothered by anything when I wasn't wearing a mask.
Click to expand...

A friend of mine has the same problem. She's planning on surgery, though, so I hope she gets past it ...
 
docB said:
My problem has always been wearing a surgical mask. I don't know why but toward the start of every OR rotation I'd get woozy and have to leave the OR. It was never the subject matter, it was just the mask. You can imagine how easily convinced the surgeons were. I even got one well meaning talking to about how if "blood" bothered me so much I should look into something other than ER. To this day I've never gotten bothered by anything when I wasn't wearing a mask.
Click to expand...

I've had this problem, too. I am now very meticulous about how I put on my mask, making sure that I have plenty of room to breathe & a great big opening at the bottom where I can get some fresh air instead of re-breathing what is in the mask. I'm not looking forward to my surgery rotation next month.
 
It was a scalpelless vasectomy as a an MSII. I guess it was just a little too close to home, a little too long from lunch, a little too hot under the gown.

Homeless feet and butt-puss rank right up there though.
 
though i haven't yet seen this in the ED (only in private practice offices), sinus infection snot gets to me more than anything else. it's green and gooey and stringy and smelly and you have to listen to people blowing it out of their noses for what seems like hours on end. and of course they ALWAYS open up the tissue and show it to you. "see, it's been like this for about a week."
 
This is my new favorite thread.

There is a thread in the General Residency Forums entitled "How Prestigous is being a doctor?" There is no better answer to that question than the responses in this thread.
 
Yeah, bean, this is a great thread. Oooey, gooey, snotty and pooey.
I think we should rename it "The best thing about EM" :laugh:
 
I can honestly say that nothing so far in my career (13 years pre- and in-hospital) has made me squeamish or queasy. The first time I saw a head blown clean off with a shotgun suicide gave me some problems sleeping for a few days, and I frequently hold my breath with the rectals, but the only thing that takes me out of the room is if I'm having to stifle a laugh. However, strangely enough, the only thing that made my stomach grumbly was while watching "ER" many years ago (really) - there was a very realistic depiction of organ harvesting from a live donor, and it just kind of "got me". The kid that was shot in the head in the PICU last month, that had a liquefied brain that was leaking out of the hole like Jello, didn't even bother me. Hell, I thought the hirudotherapy (medical leeches) that plastics used on a graft was cool!
 
Apollyon - everybody has something make them squirm someday. Your day will come. It may be the day before you retire, but I'll bet there will be some odor, some sensation or something visually horrifying that will finally bring you to your knees (like the rest of us)

Seriously, I do envy you!
 
beanbean said:
Apollyon - everybody has something make them squirm someday. Your day will come. It may be the day before you retire, but I'll bet there will be some odor, some sensation or something visually horrifying that will finally bring you to your knees (like the rest of us)

Seriously, I do envy you!
Click to expand...

I grant you that, but, at the same time, people have been telling me for years that I'll "learn", or this, or that, and I think to myself, "Well, if I haven't learned - yet - after all these years, is it a guarantee?"

But, I do agree with you - something someday.
 
So I have to ask...has anyone "gotten used to" some of these awful smells being mentioned...or were you always just able to cope? Personally, I can't even clean up dog **** without tossing my own lunch. Seems like it might be a barrier to me going into EM... :(
 
heldicus said:
So I have to ask...has anyone "gotten used to" some of these awful smells being mentioned...or were you always just able to cope? (
Click to expand...

I'm getting better about grossly angulated fractures and maggot infested flesh doesn't get me at all anymore. Vomit, though, I suspect is biologically intended to propogate itself.

Take care,
Jeff
 
heldicus said:
So I have to ask...has anyone "gotten used to" some of these awful smells being mentioned...or were you always just able to cope? Personally, I can't even clean up dog **** without tossing my own lunch. Seems like it might be a barrier to me going into EM... :(
Click to expand...

the smell of fresh feces used to make me a little flush in the face, but anymore it doesn't even phase me when an oldtimer craps themselves while i'm talking to them.

so yes, i do think you get used to it. except for maybe the "one thing" that sets an individual off. i suspect i will hate infected-sinusy mucous till the day i die.
 
Most things I can handle. Brains, poo, snot, ruptured globes, angulations - no big deal. Smells are no big deal. The only thing that always gets to me is the hematemesis of a tonsil bleed. One minute you're just talking to the pt; next minute they lean over and let loose.... eeeeeeeew!

A more common problem for me is holding back the giggles when the college student who drank too much vomits. <<sniff, sniff>> Smells like Jack!
 
heldicus said:
So I have to ask...has anyone "gotten used to" some of these awful smells being mentioned...or were you always just able to cope? Personally, I can't even clean up dog **** without tossing my own lunch. Seems like it might be a barrier to me going into EM... :(
Click to expand...
I've just had to learn (when it comes to the smells), to "ration" the good air in my nostrils, walk out when it runs out, inhale more good air, and repeat as necessary. It gets me by.
 
Removing a week old iodoform from a pilonidal cyst and repacking it! (patient forgot to return) or tubing an upper GI bleeder with varices as they spew the dew!!
mmmmmmm...good times. :D

(I agree....some vag discharges have turned me celibate for weeks!!!)
 
I will never ever forget the wonderful aroma of sucus we evacuated from a patient who had a continent ileal pouch formed 3 weeks prior (surgery sub-internship). It had been cathetered to drain until the surgical site was well healed (normally 4-6 weeks), at which time the patient could do intermittent caths every 3-4 hours to drain the pouch.

The patient insisted that s/he be allowed to start the intermittent cath'ing prior to the normal 4 weeks as s/he did not want to wear a bag anymore. S/he became blocked so we took a big ol' 60cc ostomy syringe and a bunch of warm water to flush the pouch, then suctioning the water out and squirting it in the trash can next to the bed. Worse smell than the lower GI bleed we'd seen the day before. Only time I can remember not being able to squelch the ol' gag reflex before it showed on my face :barf:
 
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