Anyone ever felt squeamish?

[bfg1997]

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...Around particularly gruesome injuries? I love watching ER shows and surgeries but I'm always worried I may not deal with it well up close and personal. Anyone else here ever felt this way?

 

[Coltuna]

...Around particularly gruesome injuries? I love watching ER shows and surgeries but I'm always worried I may not deal with it well up close and personal. Anyone else here ever felt this way?

Smells are what really get to me in a clinical setting more than anything else.

 

[bfg1997]

Smells are what really get to me in a clinical setting more than anything else.

Didn't even consider that! What smells? Please expound

 

[STcmOCSD]

I’ve had a couple cases that made me squeamish.

One was a 30 year old autistic girl who kept pulling her G-tube out. There was a lot of scar tissue and the doctor tried and tried but could not push the tube through. That got me for some reason.

Another was a huge laceration on a patient’s knee after an MVC. This wound was gaping, went diagonally across the entire kneecap, and bone was exposed.

Both cases made me squeamish momentarily but I did not have to leave the room. With me I never got nauseous, but this feeling of weakness just creeps up my body and I get really hot. I’ve gotten better since I started my job.

 

[Coltuna]

Didn't even consider that! What smells? Please expound

Gangrenous feet, cautery, etc. Some people just honestly have a naturally bad odor to them!

 

[STcmOCSD]

Gangrenous feet, cautery, etc. Some people just honestly have a naturally bad odor to them!

Yes to gangrenous feet. C-diff gets me too.

 

[bfg1997]

I’ve had a couple cases that made me squeamish.

One was a 30 year old autistic girl who kept pulling her G-tube out. There was a lot of scar tissue and the doctor tried and tried but could not push the tube through. That got me for some reason.

Another was a huge laceration on a patient’s knee after an MVC. This wound was gaping, went diagonally across the entire kneecap, and bone was exposed.

Both cases made me squeamish momentarily but I did not have to leave the room. With me I never got nauseous, but this feeling of weakness just creeps up my body and I get really hot. I’ve gotten better since I started my job.

Wow. I saw this picture of a decent sized branch, probably about 2-3 inches in diameter, passing straight through this dude's foot right below the ankle..

 

[Coltuna]

I think the thing that got to me the worst was the smell and sound of the bone saw during a total knee replacement.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Didn't even consider that! What smells? Please expound

You haven’t lived until you’ve smelled perforated bowel or peri-rectal abscess.

 

[bfg1997]

You haven’t lived until you’ve smelled perforated bowel or peri-rectal abscess.

Can you roll some tissues up and plug your nose? lol

 

[boogiecousins94]

The smell of an electrocautery and burning tissue is probably the worst thing I've experienced.

Also cadaver labs are bad smelling too, depending on what part they're using

I work in a lab taking brains out of mice etc. and nothing gets me squeamish, but that smell ^ ugh

 

[altblue]

I get nauseous around smelly things like expired food so I'm definitely worried about the smells of medicine. I'm fine with unsightly or unhearingly (lol) sounds

 

[Biological]

Another vote for gangrenous feet.

Apparently, a very unobtrusive way to deal with it is to use a little (read: excessive amount) of Vick's under your nose. If it's caked on and super visible, just toss a mask on. No patient will ask about a mask, and if for some reason they do, a quick excuse about just getting over a case of the sniffles and not wanting to spread it will be more than satisfactory.

 

[Coltuna]

Can you roll some tissues up and plug your nose? lol

Vic's valor rub under the nose

 

[Coltuna]

Another vote for gangrenous feet.

Apparently, a very unobtrusive way to deal with it is to use a little (read: excessive amount) of Vick's under your nose. If it's caked on and super visible, just toss a mask on. No patient will ask about a mask, and if for some reason they do, a quick excuse about just getting over a case of the sniffles and not wanting to spread it will be more than satisfactory.

Haha didn't even read this before my post!

 

[YeaJeets2]

You haven’t lived until you’ve smelled perforated bowel or peri-rectal abscess.

Only time I've gotten squeamish was one of my first scribing shifts when my doc drained a large peri-rectal abscess

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

The smell of an electrocautery and burning tissue is probably the worst thing I've experienced.

You’ve clearly never smelled necrotic bowel in a patient with c diff.

 

[Matthew9Thirtyfive]

I get nauseous around smelly things like expired food so I'm definitely worried about the smells of medicine. I'm fine with unsightly or unhearingly (lol) sounds

You need to get over that. There are many bad smells in medicine. And I don’t even mean infected wounds. Your fat patients will have a distinct odor emanating from between their folds that’s almost as bad as dead bowel.

 

[SpecializedSurgeon]

Everyone gets squeamish every so often — our Trauma group will share stories over lunch all the time and every so often even the most seasoned of us will express some disgust at an injury. Happens to all.

For smells, you’ll get used to most. Only one that still gets me is melena. Stinks up the whole ward.

 

[Boogy'sChick15]

If you don't have Vick's, you could try taking a mask, put some toothpaste over the top, and then apply a second mask over that....the masks will stick together and you will smell nothing but minty freshness.
I usually do this in the ER for emergency cases, but almost every department should have toothpaste and hygiene products in their stock rooms

Sent from my A0001 using SDN mobile

 

[altblue]

You need to get over that. There are many bad smells in medicine. And I don’t even mean infected wounds. Your fat patients will have a distinct odor emanating from between their folds that’s almost as bad as dead bowel.

No disagreement there

 

[Xavieous]

If you don't have Vick's, you could try taking a mask, put some toothpaste over the top, and then apply a second mask over that....the masks will stick together and you will smell nothing but minty freshness.
I usually do this in the ER for emergency cases, but almost every department should have toothpaste and hygiene products in their stock rooms

Sent from my A0001 using SDN mobile

Absolutely! I was gonna recommend this but you beat me too it! We used to do this when I was a nurse tech all the time. You would just know which rooms were beyond the threshold of tolerable and this did the trick.

As to OP's concern, don't worry about it. We all get squiemish, especially if you haven't seen this stuff before. It's your body's way of saying "woah, that doesn't look good. i don't want what is happening to him, happen to me". But with time you will become comfortable with most of it. I still remember how squeamish I was when I first started with poo and pee, and by the 5th year I had a leg explode on me (gonna be amputated next day, ton of fluid buildup and when she set it down, blew so hard the stream hit the wall). Didn't even flinch, just called over the care team while I elevated the leg, applied pressure, and started mopping up the mess with patient's blanket. You get used to it.

 

[Mad Jack]

...Around particularly gruesome injuries? I love watching ER shows and surgeries but I'm always worried I may not deal with it well up close and personal. Anyone else here ever felt this way?

Mangled limbs and such are kind of whatever. It's a quick stomach-churn and then I'm fine. Difficult spinal traps freak me out though, something about a patient complaining of shooting pain bothers me. GI bleeds are always gross as hell. Anything to do with maggots or perianal abscesses and I'm done as well.

 

[Xavieous]

Mangled limbs and such are kind of whatever. It's a quick stomach-churn and then I'm fine. Difficult spinal traps freak me out though, something about a patient complaining of shooting pain bothers me. GI bleeds are always gross as hell. Anything to do with maggots or perianal abscesses and I'm done as well.

Hahaha, GI bleeds never bothered me, perianal abscess are just 'meh'. But, anything with self inflicted wounds especially from mental disorders wrenches me. To each their own demon to conquer.

 

[Mad Jack]

Hahaha, GI bleeds never bothered me, perianal abscess are just 'meh'. But, anything with self inflicted wounds especially from mental disorders wrenches me. To each their own demon to conquer.

Self-inflicted wounds register about as much as bad wallpaper in my mind- I notice it, I think about the thought process behind why it happened, and that's about it. To each their own indeed

 

[STcmOCSD]

There’s one other that doesn’t quite make me squeamish but does make my skin crawl. For some reason, pulling a fingernail has always made me concerned. Yes, there’s a digital block and the patient doesn’t feel it. But it still makes me a little anxious to think about.

 

[CloverBale]

There’s one other that doesn’t quite make me squeamish but does make my skin crawl. For some reason, pulling a fingernail has always made me concerned. Yes, there’s a digital block and the patient doesn’t feel it. But it still makes me a little anxious to think about.

Wait until you have to inject a needle into a patient's eye T_T

 

[Robin-jay]

There’s one other that doesn’t quite make me squeamish but does make my skin crawl. For some reason, pulling a fingernail has always made me concerned. Yes, there’s a digital block and the patient doesn’t feel it. But it still makes me a little anxious to think about.

Podiatrists pull several nails a day.

 

[RTC19]

I can't stand colostomy bags!

 

[stickgirl390]

The smell of an electrocautery and burning tissue is probably the worst thing I've experienced.

Is it weird that when I smelled this it reminded me of cooking bacon?

 

[prettyNURSEtoMD]

"Neuro breath" and the smell of vomit/gastric contents take me OUT. Between working ER and ICU, I experience this all the time. Blood, Feces, pus, all of that I'm straight, but those two, nope. We had a patient come in CPR in progress, and the paramedics placed an airway inappropriately so as I'm compressing and he's being bagged, belly is expanding and next thing I know gastric contents and whatever he ate came all out of his mouth. The RT was trying to help and as she was pulling his ETT out vomit got all on me. I wish you could have seen me struggling to compress, just looking up into the ceiling screaming. THAT SMELL OF THAT BLACK GREEN JUICE....LOLLLL


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[ClamChowderrr]

It's embarrasing to admit but the sight of a deep debrided wound(bed sore) or the smell of Dakins literally brings tears to my eyes every single time.

 

[HomeSkool]

Didn't even consider that! What smells? Please expound

Nothing says "welcome to the ICU" quite like the sweet stench of melena.

Cancer eroding through the skin, though: that smells bad.

 

[longhaul3]

Lots of bad smells but people get over most of them and learn to deal with the rest. None of them have really gotten to me though like the smell of slicing nutmeg liver at autopsy 24h post mortem.