Super senses

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Just wondering, if anyone else has experienced the sudden heighten of senses when they first started nursing? I'm currently a student, but I had recently started working as a CNA and after about a month of working my hearing is highly more significant...and as for my sense of smell...I smell eveeeeeerything. I even feel like my sense of taste is different.

So what I want to know is if anyone else has experience this, or should I go head and order my cape and tights now?

BTW, no I'm not pregnant, or rather I hope not since I'm a guy...and I've heard the painful stories of kidney stones so I could only imagine....

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So what I want to know is if anyone else has experience this, or should I go head and order my cape and tights now?

I'm sorry, but really? Cape and tights attitude? Oh no.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

You lost me at kidney stones....??

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Well... I can smell when my patient has pooped when I am several doors down and have trained myself not to really smell after that.... Otherwise I think my senses are the same as before

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

I highly doubt that your senses are heightened but rather that you've taken what you learned in class and are applying it constantly. No cape or tights deserved.

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Specializes in Peri-Op.

I have a power to turn my senses off. I dont hear other nurses whining about nonsense, smells from gangrene/dead bowel/gi bleeds dont have any effect on me, rolling beds over my feet is just an inconvenience, the taste of my 3 day old food from the employee fridge is just like I pulled it from the stove..... I dont even want to talk about what I see, or actually dont see

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Specializes in ED, psych.

Quite the reverse, actually.

I have the superhuman ability to block out patients cursing me to hell, can't smell the sweet little old lady with the seventh bowel accident this day, and bang my WOW into every corner, wall, bed, and foot in a 1/4 mile radius.

It's a gift.

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You're in the wrong field. Become a search and rescue dog.

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.

OP, your post made me laugh :D

Theres a few posts on here about what smells we can all instantly identify as being related to certain diseases, which smells are the worst, etc. Entertaining to read sometimes. For me, not much is worse than the cooked broccoli brought up from the cafeteria under those little plate covers :yuck:

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Sour Lemon. you got me again!! Maybe when I retire in a few years....

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Bahaha!!! I was about to suggest taking a pregnancy test....until I read the end

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In all seriousness, nursing is all about noticing things. IMO nurses may not have superior senses, but can have greater awareness of sights, smells, sounds, etc. because performing assessments becomes second-nature. Maybe now you're just noticing and scrutinizing those observations more closely.

I swear that since I became a nurse, I can't help but assess strangers when I walk down the street. I notice gait, veins, skin discoloration/condition, WOB, and all kinds of things I never thought about before nursing. I've sat next to people on the bus and thought, 'I wonder if this guy is in heart failure?' just from those small observations.

Or maybe we need to get you one of these eye-roll inducing mugs...

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