Squeam factor?

[ddukbokeeboi]

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I used to volunteer at a prestigious ER here in the heart of NYC a couple of years ago. Needless to say, I've seen some **** (quite literally). One time, an obese, diabetic male came in with yellowed bandages wrapped around his tree-trunk legs. He kept yelling that his legs were "itchin' like hell," and demanded to be seen by someone immediately. One of the residents and I walked over to him, smiling as we cut away the bandages.

I don't know what was worse. The smell of rotting flesh, or the sight of hundreds of maggots crawling in and out of his wounds. I damn near lost it and had to excuse myself. Even as I type this now, I get a bit squeamish and get that itchy sensation along my arms and scalp. shudder.

For some reason, blood and guts don't get to me, but certain things like pus and maggots do. Any of you guys experience something similar? Just wondering how common squeamishness is and if one gets accustomed to it over time.

 

[medickdb]

To me, it's not the sights, it's the smells: infected abdominal wounds, persons who haven't bathed in months, C. difficile, the list is long. The worst odors are the ones that are so bad that even if you choose to breathe through your mouth to avoid the smell, you instead begin to taste them.

 

[Roxas]

I would hope we just get used to that kind of stuff

 

[medickdb]

I would hope we just get used to that kind of stuff

Most of it you do. Every once and awhile though...

 

[coolingglasses]

Most of it you do. Every once and awhile though...

Pretty much.

I was doing clinical experiences with a nurse last year and next thing I knew, I was helping her re-pack a rather large and unsightly surgical wound that the patient had slowly unstitched/unpacked throughout the day.

 

[medickdb]

Pro-tip: Carry around peppermints and peppermint oil or things to those effect. You never know when you may need them.

 

[guylewis]

Please keep giving the pro-tips everyone. this is a subject that has always been in the back of my mind. piss and blood doesn't bother me. puke and s**t does. I just hoped that after enough exposure I would get over it. any advice helps! No matter what, I will power through it

 

[medickdb]

Please keep giving the pro-tips everyone. this is a subject that has always been in the back of my mind. piss and blood doesn't bother me. puke and s**t does. I just hoped that after enough exposure I would get over it. any advice helps! No matter what, I will power through it

Take care of your stethoscope. Clean it with alcohol wipes in order to remove the residual oils from your neck. The oils quicken the hardening process of the rubber.

Better yet, wear a collared shirt so that the lumen never comes into contact with your skin, otherwise find something like tube gauze if you can (used to bandage things like fingers and toes) to cover the lumen.

 

[Buckeye1992]

The first time I observed a surgery the smell of the burning flesh got me a little bit. My second surgery experience wasn't any better either(external hemorrhoidectomy). But I got through them both... haha

 

[cabinbuilder]

For the bad smells that I know are coming. I wear a mask like I"m sick and place an alcohol wipe inside it so I breathe the alchol and not the foul odor in the room

 

[guylewis]

For the bad smells that I know are coming. I wear a mask like I"m sick and place an alcohol wipe inside it so I breathe the alchol and not the foul odor in the room

medical grade huffing, got it

 

[Member10billion]

The only surgery that ever disturbed me was during an orthopedic surgery case. The surgeon was removing damaged cartilage from the patient's knee with a large metal tool. Jabbing in and out. Over and over. I hate to say, this is the only time I have ever fainted. I hit the floor like a sack of potatoes. I have never been more embarrassed in my life.

 

[ddukbokeeboi]

To me, it's not the sights, it's the smells: infected abdominal wounds, persons who haven't bathed in months, C. difficile, the list is long. The worst odors are the ones that are so bad that even if you choose to breathe through your mouth to avoid the smell, you instead begin to taste them.

haha thanks for the insight. I can't wait to "taste" smells

 

[MedWonk]

The security guards at the hospital recommend Vicks vaporub just under the nose. Apparently, it works really well.

 

[HopefulReapp]

Hahaha I still remember my first night working here. Obese woman with Marfan syndrome who came up from the icu with cdif and a gi bleed puddling in the bed. It took five of us to turn her and every time we cleaned her up she pooped again. Good times good times. I've never seen maggots, but I have taken care of countless diabetics or homeless people who did not take care of their skin or extremities.

Certain situations you have to just jump in and hope that you'll be okay. You get over it.

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[Path hall]

You really just get use to it over time. When I first started anatomy, I was a little nauseous everyday and I had no appetite. Overtime, it really wasnt a big deal anymore, and I was usually hungry by lunch time. The same thing happened when I first started doing autopsies in residency. I literally could not eat meat for a month because it reminded me of dead bodies. Now, only after 6 months of residency, autopses are no longer a big deal, and I routinely eat before and after them, ha.

Anyway, my point is: you'll get use to gross stuff overtime.

 

[docterjew]

Obese woman with Marfan syndrome

For some reason I'm having trouble visualizing this

 

[Isha2018]

I've been a recovery room nurse for over 6 years, and I routinely smell rotten breath, cauterized flesh, diabetic wounds, and vomit. I have gotten used to most smells, but I still can't stand being puked on.

I was taught in nursing school that if something is 'warm, wet, and not mine---don't touch it.' However, when a patient is emerging from general anesthesia and decides to vomit, I have to have my yaunker suction at the ready, which means my arm occasionally gets hit with nice, warm puke. It's so nasty and makes me want to take a bath in chlorhexidine.

Just thought of something worse...Thankfully, only my children have pooped on me. I think I'd about die if my patients managed to spray me with poop while being turned. Ooohhh, the thing of nightmares!

 

[SurgeDO]

you will get over it--especially in anatomy lab. learning the pathophysiology helps, too.

i used to be pretty grossed out by pus...now i just look at it as a bunch of dweeby neutrophils who have given their life fighting the good fight against pathology.

medicine is awesome.

 

[HopefulReapp]

For some reason I'm having trouble visualizing this

Think six foot something and over five hundred pounds


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[DGCT00]

I did an EMS call a few years ago. Three o'clock in the morning for the woman "feeling nauseous."

The laxative given to her to try an clear her impacted colon clearly failed. Everything she had consumed made it down to her intestines and then came right back up.

So, she was vomiting feces.

 

[iTcanBdone]

The security guards at the hospital recommend Vicks vaporub just under the nose. Apparently, it works really well.

Yup this does work! I used it when I'm removing the guts from the cadavers at work. Let's just say I once made the rookie mistake and didn't tie the colon off right before cutting. Had quite the mess on my hands (scrubs, shoes and floor) smh

 

[Duff84]

Take care of your stethoscope. Clean it with alcohol wipes in order to remove the residual oils from your neck. The oils quicken the hardening process of the rubber.

Better yet, wear a collared shirt so that the lumen never comes into contact with your skin, otherwise find something like tube gauze if you can (used to bandage things like fingers and toes) to cover the lumen.

Yes and yes. Learned this the hard way, my current stethoscope is now just a giant "C"...

 

[DocWinter]

I was assisting a resident in stiching a suicide cut on the wrist and got lightheaded...something about seeing the tendons and transposing the feeling onto my own wrists...never got like that before. As a firefighter, I've pulled mangled bodies out of cars and wrapped people with open wounds, all kinds of bloody situations, but that wrist set me off for some reason.
Hadn't eaten recently either, so I'm sure that had something to do with it.

 

[MedWonk]

Yup this does work! I used it when I'm removing the guts from the cadavers at work. Let's just say I once made the rookie mistake and didn't tie the colon off right before cutting. Had quite the mess on my hands (scrubs, shoes and floor) smh

 

[embracepeace]

I used to volunteer at a prestigious ER here in the heart of NYC a couple of years ago. Needless to say, I've seen some **** (quite literally). One time, an obese, diabetic male came in with yellowed bandages wrapped around his tree-trunk legs. He kept yelling that his legs were "itchin' like hell," and demanded to be seen by someone immediately. One of the residents and I walked over to him, smiling as we cut away the bandages.

I don't know what was worse. The smell of rotting flesh, or the sight of hundreds of maggots crawling in and out of his wounds. I damn near lost it and had to excuse myself. Even as I type this now, I get a bit squeamish and get that itchy sensation along my arms and scalp. shudder.

For some reason, blood and guts don't get to me, but certain things like pus and maggots do. Any of you guys experience something similar? Just wondering how common squeamishness is and if one gets accustomed to it over time.

Did this happen recently?

 

[ddukbokeeboi]

Did this happen recently?

haha no, a couple years ago, but the memory lives on!

 

[ddukbokeeboi]

I did an EMS call a few years ago. Three o'clock in the morning for the woman "feeling nauseous."

The laxative given to her to try an clear her impacted colon clearly failed. Everything she had consumed made it down to her intestines and then came right back up.

So, she was vomiting feces.

NO effing way is this true... is it? Oh god, please be a gross misuse of hyperbole.

 

[ddukbokeeboi]

The security guards at the hospital recommend Vicks vaporub just under the nose. Apparently, it works really well.

i wish I knew about this when I spent an entire day at the medical examiner's office. HOO BOY

 

[Launcelot]

You really just get use to it over time. When I first started anatomy, I was a little nauseous everyday and I had no appetite. Overtime, it really wasnt a big deal anymore, and I was usually hungry by lunch time. The same thing happened when I first started doing autopsies in residency. I literally could not eat meat for a month because it reminded me of dead bodies. Now, only after 6 months of residency, autopses are no longer a big deal, and I routinely eat before and after them, ha.

Anyway, my point is: you'll get use to gross stuff overtime.

How do you feel about any decomp cases you've received?

 

[Path hall]

How do you feel about any decomp cases you've received?

We, as resients, do not typically do those kinds of cases. We do medical autopsies, which are performed at the family's request when someone dies in the hospital for known or unknown. These kinds of cases are usually done less than 24 hrs after death, so there is no significant decomposer.

The kind of cases you are describing (murders, suicides, decomps) are forensic pathology cases, which is a subspeciality of pathology. I havent been exposed to forensic pathology yet, but I have to do a few weeks of it soon. I'll keep you updated, hah.

 

[embracepeace]

haha no, a couple years ago, but the memory lives on!

Haha, the only reason I'm asking is because this happened to my brother! He's a resident in NY and had a very similar situation, where he had a med student with him and the med student had to leave the room because of the smell. I don't know if it's amazing or beyond scary that this type of situation with maggots on feet/legs are so common. Also, I have a morbid curiosity to see this as well....

 

[MJS4878]

For a long time nothing had really bothered me. I even shadowed an orthopedic and watched surgerys like a total knee and total hip without a problem. But on one of my interview days I nearly fainted (not because of the interview). After my interview I was waiting with a fellow interviewer in a lobby area when a man came around the corner holding his arm. He just didn't look like he was all there so we asked if he was okay. He said he needed to sit down, so myself and the other interviewer (an EMT) got up to help him out. We decided we should check his arm to see how it was so I held it still while the other interviewer slowly took off his jacket. Right away I realized that I was pretty much the only thing holding his arm up. The bone was completely snapped and we were amazed that the skin was still intact. We tried to get it into a sling and while that was happening I could feel and hear the bone crackling/grinding. We managed to secure it and call an ambulance, but afterwards I was sweating bullets and needed to sit for a while. Needless to say, it made for an interesting interview day!

 

[Launcelot]

I've done some forensic stuff before, and as off putting as the "squeam factor" is for some people in the immediate sense of the phrase (smells, sounds, and sight), I think the real thing to watch out for are cases that hit particularly close to home. You know, those moments and situations that you see in others that come back to you right when you're just about to go to bed. Those things can abruptly end a long and otherwise dutiful career in any field.

 

[Goro]

Oh, you will. I know of a pathologist who used to eat donuts while doing autopsies.

I read a surgeon's analogy once that if a guy comes into the emrgency room stuck to his dog, you don't want to be shocked, you want to get him un-stuck. Then you can be shocked.

You can used to anything! As part of the sexual medicine component of our curriculum, a faculty member once made the students watch a film of some elderly people fornicating. Some of my students have been very thin-skinned. You should have heard their howls (the students, not the people in the film)!

I would hope we just get used to that kind of stuff

 

[AkGrown84]

I work in the ER as a scribe, and we had this poor woman who came in with a MASSIVE Bartholin's Cyst (yes, that's in your nether-regions). He ended up having to open it up and drain, and it was the worst smell ever. He came out of the room just a couple minutes into it (he was already masked), asking anyone for suggestions, as he was about to hurl into his mask. I got out my little travel deodorant and lined the inside of his mask with it, gave him a peppermint beadlet (from DoTerra.....it's like a miniature liquid Altoid on crack), and then he stuck two coffee beans in his mask for good measure. It smelled up most of our 42-bed ER despite keeping the door to her room closed. Worst thing I've seen/smelled yet!

 

[Mad Jack]

I would hope we just get used to that kind of stuff

One never adjusts to the smell of GI bleeds. Near vomit inducing, errytime.

 

[Tradewinds]

I always go for a dab of toothpaste inside the mask right under where your nose will be. (just make sure you check your face for any that rubbed off after you emerge from the scent danger zone)

 

[thenameismac]

NO effing way is this true... is it? Oh god, please be a gross misuse of hyperbole.

This actually happens more often than you think. I've seen it happen in a nursing home and the hospital where I work.

 

[medickdb]

One never adjusts to the smell of GI bleeds. Near vomit inducing, errytime.

"It ain't easy, bein' hematochezi."