Patient feet

[CBG23]

Randomness: Is it just me or are many patient's foot hygiene terrible? I've been on the wards for a couple of months now and many patients have tons of foot debris between their toes and fungus growing underneath their toe nails or their toe nails haven't been clipped in month/ years. I have become more hardened in terms of the gross stuff I've seen on the wards the last few months, but seeing some of these feet when I have to asses for a Babinksi or proprioception still makes me queesy..

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[Siggy]

If only there was something that you could wear that could act like a barrier between you and the nasties.

 

[CBG23]

I definitely use gloves; was merely making an observation

 

[mimelim]

Try coming over to vascular for a day

 

[Textbookversion]

Try coming over to vascular for a day

Do you guys interact a lot with podiatry?

 

[MilkmanAl]

I'd imagine that most of their patients don't have feet to be grossed out by.

 

[evilbooyaa]

Wait till you get a diabetic patient with maggots in their foot. Luckily I didn't have to take care of them every day, but just seeing in the ED made me appreciate those with fungus and toe junk only.

But yeah I don't care 95% of the time, just use hand sanitizer. Gloves if absolutely necessary.

 

[Rockytop00]

Lol, me too. It's because everyone we see in the hospital pretty much is there because they didn't take care of themselves in the first place.

I had a 80 year old man come in the other day, when I took off his socks I was shocked... this guy's feet were BEAUTIFUL!

I was like: "OMG, you have really nice feet!" Not sure if that was appropriate... but he smiled!

 

[ArcGurren]

Lol, me too. It's because everyone we see in the hospital pretty much is there because they didn't take care of themselves in the first place.

I had a 80 year old man come in the other day, when I took off his socks I was shocked... this guy's feet were BEAUTIFUL!

I was like: "OMG, you have really nice feet!" Not sure if that was appropriate... but he smiled!

Not gonna lie if my doctor told me that it'd be a little creepy

 

[mimelim]

Do you guys interact a lot with podiatry?

Depends what your referral networks look like, but we do. The people that still have their feet tend to be in fairly bad shape. But I think I'm close to immune to the smell by now.

 

[PteFabulous]

Try coming over to vascular for a day

 

[coldleg]

Try coming over to vascular for a day

those feet are putting our kids through college!

 

[SouthernSurgeon]

I've actually contemplating getting pedicures after about age 55-60 for specifically this reason.

Old man feet are uniformly disgusting.

 

[Hemichordate]

.

 

[Belleza156]

Diabetic feet = nausea + light headedness for the beginning MS3. Hopefully it gets better....... I really don't care for diabetic feet!

I was in surgery clerkship and a diabetic lady comes in to have a callus removed...BTW she's an aesthetician, ie she gives ppl pedicures day in day out, but apparently neglects her own. Underneath the callus was a growing ulcer that had to be debrided in op...... My first surgery of surgery clerkship was basically seeing this woman's foot get debrided into a skeleton. That sight plus the rotting flesh smell made me have to take a seat. I really don't like diabetic feet.

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[viper930]

You could distract yourself from the grossness of diabetic feet by giving them a papercut on their feet and tracking how long it takes to heal.

 

[siliso]

The VA has a whole nursing service dedicated to dealing with the problem of old man feet and gnarly toenails. I think it should probably just be a default consult on every admission.