What is your Achilles heel?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Let me start by saying I am a last semester student. I have also been a tech at the hospital for 2 years.

Give me poo, vomit, anything... but please oh please not sputum....

I am desperately trying to get over my hatred of phlegm. Crazy right? Trach patients, I can't even.

Obviously, I am perfectly professional in the room, and care for these patients like any other, but seriously, I cannot be the only one, right?

Does anything gross you out, about the job, at this point?

Specializes in Pediatric Cardiology.
Strong smelling vomit the chunky stuff. Vomiting blood, feces or bile is fine, but give me that partially digested food and we are sharing a basin! :barf02:[/quote']

Yup, me too! Vomit is by far the WORST!

Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

EYES. I can't watch eye srugery, think about looking at an injured eye. Just gag me now. I had a pt with exopthalmos and her eye popped out and her eye couldn't close and I freaked inside as much as her and her daughter did. I got her to relax and her eye lid came back over but I am forever grossed out by eyes.

Dental surgery. I did a PEDS clinical rotation at a small hospital and 9 out of 10 of the PEDS OR/PACU cases were dental surgeries. I watched ONE child receive dental crowns & I'll NEVER do it again. I was soooo nauseous and I almost passed out. It was so gross!

Now, this is coming from someone that will put off a routine dentist appointment for as long as possible...bad, I know lol. However, I take VERY good care of my teeth.

Something about getting that close to someone's teeth grosses me out...especially with all the weird sound effects while picking at them *shivers*. I'm weird...I know lol.

Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

Agreed Trachs are my nemesis. I would take anything over a trach patient. The sounds, smells, & suctioning makes my skin crawl...

Specializes in NICU, PICU, PACU.

Eyes, eyeballs, anything eye related! Inhave to close my eyes when we do eye exams on the kiddos. Ugh!!

Specializes in Medical Oncology, Alzheimer/dementia.

Phlegm, suctioning, trachs for all the obvious reasons. I can't stand hearing or seeing it. Last week I floated and had a trach patient who required suctioning almost every hour it seemed. Nursing was supposed to share the suctioning with RT, but I let them have that all to themselves. I so badly wanted to go back to my own unit.

Broken bones that are exposed and trach secretions. Everyone at work knows I will cover them if it's vomit, bm or something like that..and they cover me when we get a respiratory pt, which isn't often.

Omg the sound the suction makes when the phlegm is so thick that it completely clogs it up for a second before getting sucked through to freedom. I want to gag every time.

Specializes in Peds(PICU, NICU float), PDN, ICU.

I'm the odd one out on this one. I love working with trachs. It doesn't bother me a bit. But certain odors will get me every time! I can see or hear most anything. But if I catch a whiff of certain odors, it's over!

I could never assist with circumcision *shudder*

This is the only thing I REALLY, REALLY HATE! Luckily, working nights, we don't do too many!

Specializes in Home health.

The smell of sweat... Not the normal one day kinda thing. Once had a pt who came from ltc and I was giving her a bed bath. She raised her arm and oh god! My eyes got all watery. Or another pt we had to catheterize. Opened her legs up and my eyes were burning. I just could not go through with it. Trachs used to really gross me out but I've grown to tolerate it although still not my most favorite thing to do

Specializes in Critical Care.

My allergies have left me with no sense of smell, which both hinders and helps me in nursing. I'm in the sputum/eyeball camp. Gross.

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