Oh no! please...please not that

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people say that everybody in medicine has got something, something that totally grosses them out.

this tissue, organ, bodily function is avoided at all costs or you'll :barf01:.

i haven't come acrossed mine yet... (i'm a little scared of what it'll be, i know its lurking out there somewhere).

what's yours?

Specializes in Management, Emergency, Psych, Med Surg.

One of the things that REALLY had an impression on me was when the organ donation people came out to remove the eyes of a guy who was dead. OMG..is was so weird. It just horrified me. I will never donate my eyes.

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I can watch lady partsl births with tons of blood and lacerations all day long, but even the thought of seeing a c-section makes me need rolaids. Watching them go slowly through the layers of flesh in a c-section then using their weight to pull the flesh apart makes me woozy.

Also, the smell under a 100 lb pannus when cleaning it, whoa that's a smell that'll knock you on your bum.

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I think we have a few nurses here that could write a pretty good horror novel, don't ya think? The horror is in the details! :chair:

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Specializes in CNA.

Not a nurse yet...but I was raised on a farm, and did several at-home patch-jobs on people as well as animals. I can honestly say that the only thing that causes me to gag uncontrollably is people feces and dog feces. Give me vomit, snot, mucous, blood, intestines, eyeballs fluid, feet, saliva, warts, maggots, wounds, earwax, body odor...and every thing else gross under the sun, ( human or animal) but it will be the poop that makes me gag. And trust me I have handled some very gross situations. :D

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Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.
I think we have a few nurses here that could write a pretty good horror novel, don't ya think? The horror is in the details! :chair:

EEEEEEKKKKKK! Anne Rice and Stephen King....move over cuz Nursie Horrorella ariseth from the from the nether world... to write a best seller... Could it possibly be true that N.H. has a ... GHOST writer?:coollook:

sharpeimom:paw::paw:

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Specializes in ICU, Education.
I hated the smell of escharotomies done with a bovie when I worked in Burns. It has that "meat smell"(can you tell I'm now a vegetarian?),the noise too(think electrocute type sound) and the pt was awake. Although the pt didn't feel the severely burned part when it was cut there was almost always a small patch of viable skin that would hurt like H*** when the surgeon cut through it to do the procedure. So the smell,the "zot" sound and the pt screaming when the good skin was reached made for an all around "great" experience.

It got so if I had a new adminission with circumferential burns my staff would see me roll the bovie in there and someone would gown up and cover for me while I watched their pt. It beat having me gag dry heave for the rest of the shift. I don't miss that a bit.

Geez Louise!!!!! I was going to say thick oral crud chunks that clog the yankeur, but I think you win! This is exactly why I could never do burn unit!!!!

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Specializes in ICU, Education.
After scraping brains off walls and digging teeth out of ceilings and cleaning up after bloated bodies,, I can honestly say that there is nothng that grosses me out anymore at all. I can handle any smell and any sight and any amount of goo or gore.

What the hell do you do for a living???? Or is that your leisure time?

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It's vomit and mucus/phlegm for me. Blood and guts are ok but vomit and phlegm.

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My one thing is POOP (Baby poop is not included in this, strangly enough). I can take mucus, vomit, blood and guts but don't let me get poop on my gloves! :barf02:

Oh, and power tools being used on human bones sort of gets the gag reflex going

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Specializes in Retired OR nurse/Tissue bank technician.

Vomit is a huge one for me*Shudders*. Early decomposition isn't too bad, but there was one that was a bit further along in the process and if I hadn't had some nice eucalyptus oil in my mask, it might have been hard going.

Other than that? I'm good. I've had post-mortem purge on my arms, down my scrub legs and into my shoe, no problem. Blood? Fine. Mucus/phlegm? Laughing. Puke? I'm ready to vomit myself.

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Maggots - I once had this 90 year old with cancer of the ear, and the maggots were weaving in and out of his ear. He said he could feel the tickling, and it had been going on for a while. Poor man, he was such a mess, but how can you walk around and go to the store and visit with people with maggots crawling in and out of your ear? It freaked me out.

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Back when I started out, years ago, I would have the rare patient who chewed tobacco or snuff. For some reason they were old women.

The chewed up stuff would get spat out into a paper cup on the bedside table. The spat out stuff would make me heave.

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