Nervous about doing "dirty" work

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I"m not in nursing school yet (taking prereqs) but I am very nervous about doing some of the dirtier jobs that nursing requires. Things like cleaning people's privates, puke, poo, etc. I'm not sure if I should even continue at this point. Did any nursing students feel the same way, if so is it less stressful for you to carry out these tasks now? Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

Specializes in OB (with a history of cardiac).

Yup Yup...I work at a day care center and without batting an eye can clean up a little one who had diarrhea. I can stand in front of a mirror and pop a huge green zit and call it "satisfying" but when even my CAT starts retching I turn away and plug my ears...ok I used to, I am getting used to it. But any time a kid would say "my tummy feels icky" I'd get really giddy and nervous, heck...I've only gotten to where I can watch myself vomit! (Not that I do it often). I want to work in a clinic when I am done with LPN school, and I wanna work in Peeds: there WILL be vomit.

I think back to the last time I had Strep before I got my tonsils out. I was about 11 or so and had been nauseous all day; got to the clinic where this very young woman of a doctor (I think she was still a resident or something) looked me over. It was obvoius I had strep, I had the smell, and the yellow patches, and a fever of 104. So she's giving me a throat culture and- OOPS! That was all it took, and I started retching and she got this deer caught in headlights look on her face and grabbed a little emisis basin, literally THREW IT AT ME and ran out of the room! My dad was really Teed off. So I kinda think of it like that; would I want an MD or Nurse throwing a plastic thing at my kid and running away? HECK NO. How did I feel that day? Embarassed and mad at myself for not controling myself. So yeah, puke makes me squeamish but we gotta grin and bear it. Put yourself in their shoes...of course this is me who has yet to get over it.

Specializes in ER/Trauma.

First time I did it, I could smell the whiff of poop for a week :chuckle

Now I just call it "the smell of home. Oh Med-Surg, here I come!" :roll

Specializes in ER/Trauma.

Well, I also think of it this way:

Given the choice, them patients also wouldn't want you to be wiping their behinds for them - so it's kinda like, neither of you are really dying to do it, but it's gotta get done - so we both grin and make small talk, crack a joke or two and get it done :D

It gets easier the more you deal with the 'yuckies'.

And yes, being a parent does help, because you've already changed diapers and cleaned up after kids who suddenly forget where the toilet is when they start feeling queasy. Although I'd rather change a hundred of my grandson's diapers than a single Attends full of runny, incontinent, Golytely-influenced stool, I deal with both with as much grace and good humor as possible.........it has to be done, anyway, and isn't that part of what we're paid for?

As another poster said, each of us does have one or more little 'quirks' that make some things harder to handle than others........mine are dentures and eyes. Give me a GI bleed (well, not really), give me a Stage IV draining ulcer, give me a nasty trach full of Staph any day, but DON'T make me clean food-encrusted false teeth or, Heaven forbid, take out someone's glass eyeball.......EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWW........ :barf01:

Ewww, I agree. Yuck!

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