After shadowing, what procedures gross you out?

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frosted2

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I am still having a tough time with some things after pretty extensive shadowing/exposure. Strangely, I work EMS/ED and I have seen some pretty horrible things (so I guess that I figured that I would be able to handle it?). However, two things I cannot bring myself to watch without wanting to be sick... insertions of chest tubes and removal of fingernails.

SO... what have you seen while shadowing (or working) that makes you feel ill?

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Anything related to poop grosses me out. We did an enema on a patient and she literally was going into one pan and then another. At times it overfilled. I think I nearly passed out.

Otherwise, I don't think there's any other things that bother me. I've watched surgeries and procedures in urology and worked in the ER for 3 years and nothing really stands out. I do have a funny story though. The doctor I worked for shadowed his dad (urologist) when he was in high school, and passed out when he watched his first vasectomy. I guess the patient was moaning and groaning in pain and my doc freaked out when he saw the vas deferens getting pulled out of the sac. Now he does vasectomies every week and he's a urologist too lol.


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Anything related to poop grosses me out. We did an enema on a patient and she literally was going into one pan and then another. At times it overfilled. I think I nearly passed out.

Otherwise, I don't think there's any other things that bother me. I've watched surgeries and procedures in urology and worked in the ER for 3 years and nothing really stands out. I do have a funny story though. The doctor I worked for shadowed his dad (urologist) when he was in high school, and passed out when he watched his first vasectomy. I guess the patient was moaning and groaning in pain and my doc freaked out when he saw the vas deferens getting pulled out of the sac. Now he does vasectomies every week and he's a urologist too lol.


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Yay! So there is hope for desensitization :)
Yeah, I agree... poo is pretty nasty! Espescially when c.diff is involved...
 
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This personally didn't gross me out, but the surgeon I was shadowing said most med students who observe procedures like this always end up passing out in the middle of the OR:
Removals of osteosarcomas from a patient's jaw. They literally peel the face up and clip it to the hairline. Super freaky.
Also super cool.

But personally for me, I worked in the postpartum department of a hospital for a while and observed a lot of circumcisions. They didn't gross me out, but I kinda felt sad for the little babies. Still don't really know how I feel about them.
 
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So I was in the hospital shadowing a PA in neurology. We went to a patient who recently underwent brain surgery and I was tasked with holding the patients hand while she maneuvered a tube from her head. Luckily she was sleeping. She starts opening the wound and begins to take the tube out. Patient shuffles around but doesn't wake up (I'm still holding her hands - Sweaty fingers). The PA proceeds and finds a staple gun... I'm thinking there is no way she's just gonna pop her right now...

POP

The poor patients eyes pop open and she started softly yelling (she was really weak) and pulling my hands. Knees weak moms spaghetti soon ensued. I don't know how I made it through that lol.
 
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Something about people being reduced to basically maple trees with an LP just simultaneously makes me queezy, and ruins my fond memories of helping collect sap in my youth.
 
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Nothing really grosses me out anymore. After my UG class in forensic anthropology I don't know if there's much that could.
 
I think it's less about grossing out and more about causing the patient harm.
 
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I think it's less about grossing out and more about causing the patient harm.

True, usually trying to reason through that the things being done are in the persons best interest help me when I feel queezy, since it it less about gory/gruesome/digusting things (totally fine with all the smells that come through the ED, or the gory wounds) and more about bodily harm to another person caused by some intervention on a medical professionals part.
 
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Surgeries relating to toenails, eyeballs, and anything with diarrhea gross me out, everything else is amazingly fascinating to me...I've seen hundreds of ER and non emergent procedures, deaths, and inside a lot of bodies. But something with how fragile the eyes and toes....plus i hate looking at feet as it is....and diarrhea just smells god awful.
 
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Shadowing a plastic surgeon once while he drained a lady's necrotic buttocks because of an underlying infection. That was quite the angle.
 
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Shadowing a plastic surgeon once while he drained a lady's necrotic buttocks because of an underlying infection. That was quite the angle.
I&Ds can be gross.
 
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Surgeries relating to toenails, eyeballs, and anything with diarrhea gross me out, everything else is amazingly fascinating to me...I've seen hundreds of ER and non emergent procedures, deaths, and inside a lot of bodies. But something with how fragile the eyes and toes....plus i hate looking at feet as it is....and diarrhea just smells god awful.

The only times I ever felt weak in the OR were for a toenail removal and a corneal replacement. I don't do feet and I don't do eyes. Glad I was sitting down for both!
 
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The only thing I haven't seen is an operation that has to do with opening up the face and I'm pretty sure if I didn't pass out I wouldn't feel so good watching it.

Other than that the only "gross" thing was seeing an infected scrotum which really just smelled bad more than anything. That and the smell of burning flesh.

Other wise I don't find myself getting woozy or sick but there are some things that the first time I see them it is a nice little shock of reality.

I can say I was surprised that seeing a patients abdomen opened up and his guts all everywhere didn't bother me.
 
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Shadowing a plastic surgeon once while he drained a lady's necrotic buttocks because of an underlying infection. That was quite the angle.

+1, assisted with multiple of these in a general surgeon's ofc.. it's not even the sight of it, it's the smell that gets me every time.
 
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While working as an EMT there were two things where I had to look away or I would have puked. One was a hospital discharge. Patient was diabetic and had necrosis in her feet. Transferred her, and then on the bed was a ton of skin and a couple of toenails... I definitely gagged.

Second was a patient who wet herself in my van. Older lady, completely out of it from a UTI. That smell haunts me to this day.
 
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While working as an EMT there were two things where I had to look away or I would have puked. One was a hospital discharge. Patient was diabetic and had necrosis in her feet. Transferred her, and then on the bed was a ton of skin and a couple of toenails... I definitely gagged.

Second was a patient who wet herself in my van. Older lady, completely out of it from a UTI. That smell haunts me to this day.
Skin flakes all over the bed get me every damn time :)
 
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I work in the ER and there is nothing like opening the door to a patient's room to insert a Foley catheter and getting slapped in the face by the smell of yeast. Love my 400+ pound patients from the nursing homes..

Funny story as well- one of the ER docs where I work had a patient throw up in his face while intubating said patient.. Hahaha it was disgusting, but he did manage to get the tube in just in time.
 
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I didn't think any procedure could gross me out...until I saw a postpartum pap smear. So simple and so routine, but I passed out QUICK.
 
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:brb:
 
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Recently went down while observing a tunneled catheter placement.
 
I saw an episiotomy during delivery and I felt empathetic pain in my gooch
 
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I'll bite. So, funny enough, I'm Jewish, and yet the first time I saw a circ up close I nearly passed out.

Anything with diarrhea or other bad smells really grosses me out. Mostly because I realize that in order for me to smell it, there have to be microscopic particles of it touching my olfactory epithelium. Ugh!

Other than that, I have a pretty iron stomach. :barf:
 
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Reviving this thread bc I just emptied a colostomy bag on a patient with a GI bleed. I will forever be haunted by that smell.
 
Coprophagia. Scatolia.
All over themselves. All over the walls.
For how long? God only knows.
VickyRN said:
I have unfortunately witnessed this type behavior. One elderly demented patient (who used to be a demure Southern Belle school teacher in her earlier life) was scooping feces out of her pamper, eating kernels of corn she found in the feces, and painting the wall above her bed with the rest.
This.
 
Incision and drainage of abscesses that drain like 30ccs of cream cheese looking discharge :hungover:
 
God. There was this one woman who always needed a complete bed bath. The nicest lady.

But every time I'd be cleaning her in the shower I'd be on pins and needles because she had a tracheotomy and a G-tube. She would always make these sounds like she was aspirating in the middle of cleaning that would always freak me out. The worst was when you were giving her the bed bath without an assist. I always had to stop just to make sure I didn't somehow let water anywhere around that area.
 
Patient diagnosed with myiasis. . . . .
 
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I was surprised how light headed I got when I saw a dermatologist remove a ping-pong-sized cyst from a patient's head. It wasn't the cyst that grossed me out (or the fact that it exploded and landed in my hair...) but the small piece of scalp+hair that he cut off. It's funny how the small stuff can trip you up.
 
Anything involving finger nails. I saw one removed while a patient was sedated in the ER one night and I remember being horrified at the way the skin moved


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Had to help move a 300 pound patient who had a seizure and passed out on the can, turned out he also had a GI bleed. the bathroom looked like a scene from a horror movie....
 
While working as an EMT there were two things where I had to look away or I would have puked. One was a hospital discharge. Patient was diabetic and had necrosis in her feet. Transferred her, and then on the bed was a ton of skin and a couple of toenails... I definitely gagged.

Second was a patient who wet herself in my van. Older lady, completely out of it from a UTI. That smell haunts me to this day.
I had a lady with a full diaper sit on my foot (lift assist and she fell onto me). Also on a full arrest the patient had pooped all over and while we were moving him my hand caught a handful of poop (I was wearing gloves). For some reason I can try my hardest to manage poop stuff, but flaky skin ppl creep me out.
 
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It's not that gross, but I hate nasogastric tube feeding, esp on patients who aren't all there and are obviously in pain. I feel like I'm witnessing a torture scene.
 
Really wishing I didn't read this thread while eating my morning oatmeal....
This was more disturbing than any other. If I ever need to get sick in a jiffy, I know what to google. Either this or fracture reductions. YUCK-O!
 
It's not that gross, but I hate nasogastric tube feeding, esp on patients who aren't all there and are obviously in pain. I feel like I'm witnessing a torture scene.
NG tube insertion is pretty hard to watch too :(
 
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I had a lady with a full diaper sit on my foot (lift assist and she fell onto me). Also on a full arrest the patient had pooped all over and while we were moving him my hand caught a handful of poop (I was wearing gloves). For some reason I can try my hardest to manage poop stuff, but flaky skin ppl creep me out.
Flakes on the bed after a patient is discharged will sometimes make me gag!

(Someone needs to teach me how to multi-quote so I quit clogging up the thread... I have never been able to do it successfully!
 
NG tube insertion is pretty hard to watch too :(
Yes! It's just weird with the knowledge that force feeding is actually a thing, and that's how it's done.
I work in a NICU now, and most of the infants there have gavage feeding which is literally the same term used to describe force feeding ducks for foie gras.
 
Flakes on the bed after a patient is discharged will sometimes make me gag!

(Someone needs to teach me how to multi-quote so I quit clogging up the thread... I have never been able to do it successfully!
The long yellow nails tho with a pinch of flakes lol.

To multi quote just hit reply on the comments and just space them out to which ones you will reply to.
 
Yes! It's just weird with the knowledge that force feeding is actually a thing, and that's how it's done.
I work in a NICU now, and most of the infants there have gavage feeding which is literally the same term used to describe force feeding ducks for foie gras.

That is horrible... :( I hate seeing that on the menu at a restaurant.
My advanced directive (because I am in my early twenties and I have seen kids my age that are vegetables in nursing homes) is to withhold all artificial nutrition (yay for no force feedings!) and just give pain meds PRN until I kick the bucket.

The long yellow nails tho with a pinch of flakes lol.

To multi quote just hit reply on the comments and just space them out to which ones you will reply to.

NASTY @The Buff OP
Yay! Figured out multi-quoting :)
 
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Knee replacements aren't for the faint of heart.
 
I have a pretty iron stomach, but I have always been grossed out by vomit/anything mouth related (could NEVER be a dentist!). I was actually concerned for some time that if a patient ever vomited near/on me, I might just vomit right back:depressed: However, I recently had to deal with this a lot at one of my volunteer positions, and I am glad to say I was able to get through it (though there was considerable mental effort on my part to "just deal with it").

The thing that grossed me out the most while shadowing was probably wound care. I have shadowed a lot in rural/underserved population hospitals, and you see a lot of uncontrolled diabetes in that type of population. Lots of horrendous lower extremity wound infections. Turns out I am pretty turned of by pus as well (though honestly, I think it is more the smell than anything for me). Also saw a lot of staph infection after care. The first time I saw a doctor remove 6-8 feet of packing, I think my stomach actually touched my epiglottis and my eyeballs almost hit the ceiling.

By the way, this post was very educational and entertaining to read! This is the kind of thing I want to discuss with my fellow pre-meds. Skin flakes and yellow fingernails do not sound pleasant, nor does watching a circumcision.
 
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