Okay, before anyone starts the insane spamming, please READ THE POST. This is not meant to demean or attack any nurses. I am an RN and I love nursing - and I respect everything that nurses do. I know that some people are also better at some things than others. This is meant to be a very respectful post simply asking for some help and advice, so please do not start attacking and saying that I don't "understand" what nursing is. Thank you in advance! :)
Here's the issue: I started a job right out of nursing school with a hospital. I stayed for a few months, but I literally used to want to cry every day that I went. I wasn't overwhelmed by the responsibility or the new things I needed to learn (I actually enjoyed that)...it was the "cleaning" part of our job description. I know it's part of nursing, and I certainly cleaned my patients quickly and extremely well, but not without gagging. I can't help it. I truly find it very disgusting cleaning someones watery feces off of their back, butt, and bed. Everytime I smelled that horrible smell I became sick to my stomach knowing what I was about to have to do. It controlled my life and I was so unhappy I quit.
Fast forward: I work in a primary care office. I love it! No poop, normal hours, etc. I also have developed a passion for family practice, and with so many physicians choosing to specialize instead of work in FP, I see how important NPs will be as more and more Americans are insured under current laws. I want to help fill that void. I could easily go to NP school now, but I feel NPs were developed to expand on their current clinical experience. While I love my job, I honestly don't learn much about medicine, it's mainly vitals and scheduling, etc. I feel to truly become a competent NP and provide high quality care to my patients, I need to work in a hospital environment for a few years so that I can manage my own patients and learn about their conditions and treatments. This of course is an issue considering my previous experience with this...so what can I do??
Any advice? I really need some help here, not 3-4 pages of insults about how I should just learn to love cleaning up poop. I will never love it, and I don't have to love it to be a good nurse. I do respect all of you that do, however, and I'm sure your patients do too! :)
I'm a student and I haven't started my first clinical yet. I'm scheduled to go to clinical in September and yes, I have been wondering about how I will handle this aspect of care. My friend, who is an RN, told me that she doesn't think about the 'poop'. She thinks about the patient and what s/he needs and how the pt feels about having to have someone clean their ass and all. Therefore, she tells me, the focus is on the pt rather than on herself. Sounds good in theory, but I guess I won't really know how I'm gonna respond until I'm in clinical right? I appreciate all these posts about this topic, because I really have been wondering if I can handle it myself. I also don't like looking at scabs! Well, it's going to be a real eye opener in September.
Specializes in Critical Care, ED, Cath lab, CTPAC,Trauma.
I think that we need to be respectful of what others say.....we all have had those moments when we thought "Man...what the heck was I thinking???? :banghead:"
My first semester in nursing school I was going to quit!!!!!! We spent our time exclusively at the nursing home and in there was the paying side, the medicare side, and the medicaid side with stark differences in the decor and care. I the medicaid side there was very few staff and I think the only time these people got care and the only reason they got care was because the students were there. Bedsore you could place two fists into.....caked on feces, rotting unbrushed teeth matted hair. I cried every single day I went to school and every day I went home.......I raged against wanting to be a nurse...my father and my instructor refused to let me quit ......which means, in the long ruin, I really didn't want to quit.
Then I went to psych.....state institutions were open then...I thought I was LOSING MY MIND....the conditions...the STAFF...who should have been patients themselves....the treatment of the patients. GThen only way to decipher the patient from the staff were the keys they carried. The patient in actual straight jackets......elector-convulsive therapy without the benefit of anesthesia...I could barely believe my eyes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was barely 17 years old.
OB the only birth I saw was a frantic effort to save a baby they lost the heart beat during a difficult labor.
Ok I'm DONE...RIGHT NOW I'm DONE!!!!!!!!!! It was my obedience (my father forbid it)and perseverance that made me stay.
My clinic experience was in a prison.....enough said
That was 35 years ago this month.
If there were forums then I would be posting the same thing ....Where can I go to get away from this crap???? There is NO WAY I am doing this stuff
So I get where the OP is coming from.
It is ok to disagree without being disagreeable remember.
...allnurses
promotes the idea of lively debate. This means you are free to disagree with anyone on any type of subject matter as long as your criticism is constructive and polite
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
Thank you everyone for your responses, though I did detect some hostility (surprise, surprise) in some of your responses. To the person who gave the example of the one time a doctor cleaned up poop for a c-dif neighbor - that's an anomaly. If I rarely cleaned up poop and then had one patient who needed it, I would happily do it as I have in the past. That's completely different from waking up EVERY DAY knowing you are going to be cleaning up poop 5-6 times before you even have lunch. It's just not even comparable.
As for "getting over it" - I can't. I really just can't. It disgusts me, it makes me sick. I hate the sight, the smell, everything. I feel so filthy after I clean it up that I often can't eat for the rest of the day. Sucking it up is not an option.
What about the ED? I know things can get messy there, but you don't have incontinent patients laying in their bed all day needing diaper changings and bed baths. How often do ED nurses clean someones poop off them? I'm okay with blood, guts, etc - just not poop.
Dear, C-Diff smells even worse than regular poop, so I guarantee you would hate that. However, I do like the ideas posted about settings where you would be a better fit. Even ERs have patients who enter that are extremely ill, and even continual diarrhea occurs. I wish you all the best in finding your fit as a NP. With the wide variety of areas of nursing that exist, there just must be a good fit for you.
Before I entered nursing school I spent time volunteering and shadowing a PCT. That's where I learned that I could deal with poop, wounds you could lose a tennis ball in, one memorable patient who was missing the lower half of his face due to cancer ().
Now I'm laughing at myself... Please, please! Pick me! Pick me! I'll clean poop! I'll work all night, every night! Pretty pleaase! I'll work for free.....
My mother is a nurse she said she use to hold her breath. What I use to do, I used smell good carmax or lotion and put it under my nose. Sometimes the smell will stick to your nose airways when it's time for lunch, I would wash around my mouth and smell the soap. I hope this help
Of course not! Why in the world would you say such a thing simply because I want her to know that cath lab may have critical care requirements?! I'm all for the OP reaching her goal of finding work where she feels happy. But she needs to know how to get there, and working in ICU or telemetry will not give her a poop free experience. So I don't want her getting all fired up for cath lab if that is going to require her to put in a few years of ICU. She WON'T like it.
Geez, project much?
Haha your last line comes off more like, "I know you are but what am I?"
I asked if you're delighting in it because many of these posts sound like they're gleefully sharing, "Nope! Can't escape poop there either!" in a mocking tone. I may be misinterpreting but I'm certainly not projecting. I figured your response about ICU experience could have been left at just the first sentence without the added shutdown.
Specializes in Care Coordination, MDS, med-surg, Peds.
Meriwhen..
LOL!!! i so agree!!! When I worked inpsych, I have had poo handed to me, smeared everywhere and eaten by patients!! NEVER a dull moment!
OP---I understand as I really really really cant handle eyeball things....enucleations, fake eyes, eyes with large foreign objects inserted(like pencils, etc). I;m fine with eye drops, opintments, etc., but nothing invasive, and Lord help me if i need cataract surgery!!!!
As a new CNA, eons ago, I had so much trouble with cleaning vomit, that another Cna and I traded off--I would do her super smelly poopoos, if she would clean the vomit, and it worked very well!!!
now, I can handle any of these, I may gag with the vomiting, but I can handle it!
As an NP I don't think you need more clinical experience. You will get it in your NP program. My advice is to go right to school now while you have the desire and enthusiasm! Good luck :)
Specializes in Clinical Research, Outpt Women's Health.
As an NP I don't think you need more clinical experience. You will get it in your NP program. My advice is to go right to school now while you have the desire and enthusiasm! Good luck :)
I think this would work. Ideally acute care experience would be extremely helpful, but if you can't then you can't.
OP, I totally understand your dilemma with poo. It's a visceral reaction. I've been in bedside nursing for decades and can comfort, and clean a patient through any mess the body can make, But if I HEAR the sound of RETCHING.... I'm done for....I start retching too. (Why must the ear be connected to the stomach? Some cruel joke of evolution? )
While you explore your career options, I recommend those strong MINTY BREATH STRIPS like Listerine brand. They come in pocket packets. Two of those in your mouth are so overwhelmingly powerful that your eyes will water, and all sense of smell will be side tracked. It may help you get through the tough times. (It's really so strong and unpleasant that it may side track your emotional response too)
I feel for you with your dilemma. Don't let any embarrassment or worry about it get you down. Just let your caring shine through. Good luck.
I work in the OR. It is not completely poop free, but the occasions of "code brown" are relatively rare. Now, managing the care of a patient in the OR is very different than a med-surg patient on the floor. We get only a few minutes a conscious time with our patients and the in-OR time (while they are anesthetized) is focused on safety for the patient (and team), managing surgical equipment and supplies and documentation. We do lots more, but those are the primary focus. I don't deal with many medications, and I administer none (I hand them to the sterile team or provide them to the anesthesiologist to administer). Some ORs have the OR nurse start IVs, ours has pre-op nurses or anesthesiologists start them. Sometimes we assist during blocks, then we can actually practice comforting the patient during invasive procedures. In ambulatory settings you may do conscious sedation and have awake patients to comfort during short local-only procedures. OR nursing can be translated into NP practice, but most likely you would find yourself working as the nurse analogue of an internist, not in your own practice or in the practice of a FP doctor. The most wonderful thing about nursing is that you can almost always find a way to make what you enjoy most about nursing into a practice. I'd say if NP is your path you will find a way to make it work without having to do things that are just too uncomfortable for you. That being said, there will always be surprises and you can't let one thing keep you from reaching your goal. Masks by themselves don't do it for me, but experiment with things to find something that does work for you. Good luck.
). 
Laraine
23 Posts
I'm a student and I haven't started my first clinical yet. I'm scheduled to go to clinical in September and yes, I have been wondering about how I will handle this aspect of care. My friend, who is an RN, told me that she doesn't think about the 'poop'. She thinks about the patient and what s/he needs and how the pt feels about having to have someone clean their ass and all. Therefore, she tells me, the focus is on the pt rather than on herself. Sounds good in theory, but I guess I won't really know how I'm gonna respond until I'm in clinical right? I appreciate all these posts about this topic, because I really have been wondering if I can handle it myself. I also don't like looking at scabs! Well, it's going to be a real eye opener in September.