My wife will be graduating in December and wants to work in critical care/ICU. However, she has a very sensitive "gag" reflex that is activated primarily by smell (meaning looking at gross stuff doesn't really bother her, but combined with or by themselves noxious smells tend to make her gag). She fears that she will gag in front of a patient and be disiplined, and or fired (she said that she has just been lucky to this point in nursing school). Thus, far I have only been able to offer Vic's Vapor rub as a way of dealing with her problem. This helps, but it is difficult to apply in a time efficient manner, and you don't always know when a "gag" incident will occur (and it is effective for only a relatively short period of time). She says this occurs much more often in the morning when her sinuses/allergies are more active. Do you have any other advice? I have thought of behaviorally, based counseling as a long term solution. Are there any safe drugs that lower the sense of smell or lower the gag reflex (in the same way that certain medications help with motion sickness)? Are there any other "tricks of the trade" that might help keep her from gagging or at least from getting in trouble if she does? Is there anything similiar (but longer acting, and or more powerful) than Vic's which might be topically applied? I once suggested having her olefactory nerve clipped, but that seemed an unpopular suggestion (although I would like such a procedure myself to help with weight loss, since no smell= no taste which might equal weight loss).
