What is the grossest thing you have encountered in clinicals?

julieftRN · May 28, 2004

Grossest thing? HMMM. A man with a trach was coughing. He had misted O2 over his trach...well huge brownish stringy globs of mucus were spraying out of his trach opening. Got all over his gown, his 02 tubing. Thank goodness it never landed in my eye or in my mouth!!
Another one: A patient was confused. This patient was inserting fingers into rectum and smearing the feces on his hands like lotion. I was horrified when I went in there to do my assessment on him. It's a good thing I wear gloves most of the time for anything. This same patient was trying to touch my face when I first went in there and was talking close to him (he was hard of hearing).

That is terrible!!!! :eek:

TweetiePieRN · May 28, 2004

That is terrible!!!!

It really was!! And to top it all off, this man touches his phone, remote control, bed rail and everything. So I had to warn everyone who went in there to glove up!

itsme · May 29, 2004

I have been a nurse for almost 10 years and not too long ago had a nasty experience. I took off a foot dressing on a new admit who came from home. He said he just wrapped his foot cuz it was sore. Well, I take off the dressing and about 1000 skittering nasty little maggots took off!! EWWWWW those little buggers can run, or slither or whatever it is they do! They were everywhere, looked like some one spilled a bag of cooked rice in that dressing!!!

mitchsmom · May 30, 2004

I am not even in clinicals yet but I handle all the gross out tales mostly without batting an eye. However, an OB/GYN physician friend of mine had a truly horrendous experience that I will never get out of my head (I wasn't even sure if I should post it). I can't remember all the details now because it was a couple of years ago, but a pregnant rural immigrant patient with no prenatal care showed up in full labor at a very small rural hospital with just an ER doc on duty (no OB's, they have to come over to our town to deliver). The doc was not able to deliver the baby, which he could not get a heartbeat for, and he had her rushed to my friend who was on call here at our hospital. She had to do a lot of work to get the dead baby out, who due to anomalies and/or length of demise was decapitated. Isn't that the most awful thing? There was an autopsy but I didn't ask my friend about it. Of course there was a review/debrief, my friend said the ER doc was in tears (I think he knew the state of the baby's body when the lady was transferred, for a while I think he was afraid that he had somehow been the cause).

JimmyMallo · May 30, 2004

You think projectile vomiting is bad, try a 5 ft projectile BM!!! Turned her on her side for a bath and DAMN!!! Good thing I wasn't on that side of the bed. She hit the DOOR!!! Talk about WOW!:rotfl:

I'm still considering calling guiness (sp?) :chuckle

lisamc1RN, LPN · May 30, 2004

I am not even in clinicals yet but I handle all the gross out tales mostly without batting an eye. However, an OB/GYN physician friend of mine had a truly horrendous experience that I will never get out of my head (I wasn't even sure if I should post it). I can't remember all the details now because it was a couple of years ago, but a pregnant rural immigrant patient with no prenatal care showed up in full labor at a very small rural hospital with just an ER doc on duty (no OB's, they have to come over to our town to deliver). The doc was not able to deliver the baby, which he could not get a heartbeat for, and he had her rushed to my friend who was on call here at our hospital. She had to do a lot of work to get the dead baby out, who due to anomalies and/or length of demise was decapitated. Isn't that the most awful thing? There was an autopsy but I didn't ask my friend about it. Of course there was a review/debrief, my friend said the ER doc was in tears (I think he knew the state of the baby's body when the lady was transferred, for a while I think he was afraid that he had somehow been the cause).

Omg! :crying2: That is horribly sad. I think I will be able to handle the gross stuff better than the sad stuff.

PCGrad06 · May 30, 2004

[color=#ff0080]this thread is really great! it has opened my eyes to alot of stuff. :)

arkansas_girl · May 30, 2004

:uhoh21: Omg yall... I think I'll stay out of this thread.... :uhoh21:

BittyBabyGrower, MSN, RN · May 30, 2004

When I was a student I had this poor girl with a bowel obstruction puke pure poopy all over the front of me...down to my toes...but, dang , I got the ng in LOL I scrubbed myself with a scrub brush, threw my uniform and shoes away...that is still to this day, even 18 years later, the grossest thing that has happened to me :uhoh3:

rondafan · Jun 4, 2004

I didn't get to see this personally but an ambulance brought a 54 y/o from home that had fell, she lived in a very small travel trailor & was unable to get up for "days" she said. She had numerous ulcers to her legs that she had placed paper towels on to collect drainage. The EMT's said they like to never got her out of floor & when they pulled off towels over her sores maggots came out. They bumped her leg on way out the door BROKE the skin & maggots poured out!!!!!! The nurse that had to take care of her in ER when she came in is a seasoned RN for 20 some odd years & said its the 1st thing that actually made her vomit! They called in PT to fire up whirlpool when they saw it was just too many to clean out of both legs & decided to cath her, they had to scoop the maggots out of her lady parts!! The lady was appearantly rotting from the inside out. I talked to all involved in the am & all were obviously disturbed after this. The pt got transfered to a bigger hospital w/ a wound care nurse & ended up w/ bilateral AKA's, social services placed her in a nursing home, & last I heard she lived happily ever after & was doing well!

luvbug · Jun 4, 2004

I know, I haven't been on this site forever, but I have been WAY busy. Anyway, I have encountered a few gross things in my career, one of the most recent was a nursing home resident who is wheelchair bound. he came into the clinic with an aide, but then the aide left. I went out to the waiting room to bring him back and couldn't figure out what the smell out there was. As I was walking, I happened to look down, and there it was --a big pile of feces. Yes, feces. At first I thought it was from a dog, and I noticed right away that someone had stepped in it. Ew. So, I get him in the room and came right back out to help clean up as much as we could-there were several other patients in the waiting room. Anyway, we did soon figure out that the feces were indeed human, and from the resident I had. He propels himself in the chair with his feet and had subsequently made a path down the hall. After he was done seeing the doctor, we tried to get him to stay in the room, but he refused, and we had to go through the whole floor-cleaning again.

My other one was a pilonidal cyst. If you don't know what those are-be glad. If you do, you may be able to identify with me. I'll keep this one to a minimum, though. I was assisting in draining one of those and got sprayed with the contents. Thankfully, I live close and got to go home to change, but I felt contaminated for a LONG time.

Drysolong · Jun 6, 2004

One of my fellow nursing students, who has experience as a CNA/PCT states that there is a way of breathing that can help you withstand terrible odors. Is anyone familiar with this technique?