What is your weakness?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Hi everyone,

I am relatively new here. I spent the last year reading allnurses.com and recently registered and would like to know what is your weakness regarding medical care.

Everyone, at least that I know, has a weakness. Something that just makes them queasy. Some people say they can't handle sputum of any kind and others seem to get weak in the knees when they see broken bones. (I knew a ER nurse who admitted to this)

I tend to get a little woozy when someone palpates my inner arm to look for a vein. It even happens if I think about it too much. It is not the needle. I had them in my hand and does not do a thing to me. I can deal with anything else. Granted I am still a student so I have not experienced everything.

So, what does it for you? Inquiring minds want to know.

I'm not a nurse yet, but one thing that bugs me now, and will forever, is spit. I don't like seeing it, hearing it, nothing. I think its disgusting and sometimes makes me gag. Haha.

I can handle pretty much anything-nasty wounds, smelly odors and all body fluids. But I absolutely can't stand lice. They have to be the most disgusting things I have ever seen......Had to do head checks in school once, felt faint when I actually found a infestation with LIVE BUGS. Took everything I had not to scream and run.

Specializes in cardiac med-surg.

making beds

soooooooooooooooo not important

Specializes in Pediatric office nursing.

sputum, especially when it's in a full container from a chest tube---gross!!

Specializes in brain injury,.

orthopedic surgery. the sound the smell the hammering the violence of it. We got a moose this year and we butchered it ourselves I had to leave during the bone sawing part. Just the thought makes me queasy

Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

I am really bothered by the broken ribs during chest compressions. I also can't stand suptum and suctioning. The thought of both is making me queasy now.

Specializes in Flight, ER, Transport, ICU/Critical Care.

Sputum. Hands down.

That funky icky puss smell that lingers in some patients. Can happen to any one with one, but is endemic generally in ECF residents that use the gentle soap - sometimes a little Dial soap is a GOOD THING. I'm not trying to be mean, but...it does get to me.

Pulling a fractured femur to traction. That sound and feeling of the bones realigning does creep me a bit.

Dental stuff. Had an Oral Surgeon take out some abscessed molar teeth for a patient in one of out trauma rooms one day. They broke apart and had to be removed by various means of force. He was digging, drilling, scraping an inch into this patients lower jaw. I had been in there for almost 2 hours and we weren't nearly finished. One of the other nurses peeked in and then retreated. I asked her later, why didn't you come watch or maybe relieve me for a minute or two? She replied, "Well, I took one look at you and your eyes were as big as saucers and you looked a bit pale. I knew I didn't want any part of any of that." :( Gotta love TEAMWORK.

GI bleeds are pretty icky.

Patients that have to be "removed" from the urban outdoors that are unwashed for maybe days, weeks, months. They smell like billy goats and it takes shaving cream heaped over the funk to loosen the "layers". EWW!

Necrotizing fascitis and other bad bugs!

Practice SAFE! ;)

Specializes in Med/Surge, Psych, LTC, Home Health.

Lessee... I actually don't get grossed out all that easily, but I guess if I had to name the things that gross me out the worst:

1) Anything *rotten*. That includes nasty, nasty wounds on people that

have been neglected for a long, long time.

2) C-diff or GI bleed poop.

3) Vomit.

Sputum actually doesn't bother me TOO bad, and normal poop doesn't bother me at all. Blood doesn't bother me. Looking at someone's guts/doing a dressing change doesn't bother me unless again, it's all rotten and stuff.

Specializes in ER/ ICU.

GI bleed from either route has always done me in.

oh jeeze....I'm not feeling too good myself after reading this thread...

and I want to be a nurse WHY??

:rotfl:

C-diff.....oh noes!

c diff, the products from kayexcalate (spelling?), vomit....they all bother me. Body odor is the worst though, at least that one can be prevented.

+ Add a Comment