Germophobic considering Nursing. please help!

[kgard7777]

I would like to know if I am an extreme germophobic could Nursing still be for me? I want to help people and I feel as though Nursing is the way to do it. However, if someone sneezes or coughs I run in a different direction. I don't touch door knobs without a papertowel etc. I don't like to be around people that are not clean or have an odor.. Be it cigarette smoke what have you.

Could I still make a good Nurse? Or should I stick with my desk job?????

[Scrubby]

Sighs. I really wish people here on allnurses would go and actually READ what the definition of what an internet troll is. I'm getting a little tired of people starting a thread to ask whether their phobias/issues may affect them going into nursing and then being called a troll. Also, if the person does have OCD, it's hardly a sensitive way of treating them.

Anyway maybe you should consider operating room nursing. As a germaphobe you would be quite vigiliant with maintaining asepsis at all times which would be of great benefit to the patient.

[PostOpPrincess, BSN, RN]

I just wish I wasn't so paranoid about germs and unclean people.

I will be blunt. There is no way you can be a nurse; I had a patient with necrotizing fasciitis the other day and then another with H1n1.

HOW do you expect to avoid that?????

Don't do something that you will regret; you already know you're a germaphobe. Do something else.