What nursing task do you loathe???

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Just realized today that I can't stand ostomy appliances. It's not the poop, it's just cutting and sizing the appliance and that messy paste. Tedious and irritating but somebody's gotta do it.

How about you?

Vomit. It takes everything I have not to puke right along with them.

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Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

Trachs make me want to vomit. The sound, smell, and auctioning make my skin crawl. Doesn't mean I don't do it but definitely not my favorite.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg.

Bathing pt's.. I put it off as much as possible.

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I hate feeding patients too! It doesn't make me sick, I just don't have the patience for it... all I can think of is all the other things I have to do. That's probably why when I work in the hospital I only do nights

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Specializes in CVSICU, Cardiac Cath Lab.

Vomit. Can't stand it at work, can't stand it at home. Give me a good endotracheal suction any day! Something so satisfying about seeing the tubing fill up with nasty mucous plugs!

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Specializes in Med/surg tele, home health, travel.

Applying nystatin cream to nasty smelly skin folds on a morbidly obese patient. Even worse than that would be washing those skin folds. I had a recent admission that literally made me want to vomit. I can handle a lot of gross stuff but that had to be one of the worst. The smell of infections and poor hygiene including dental caries instantly make my lips curl. When I see I have a patient on my assignment with a skin infection I know it's going to smell awful.

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I don't like shaving people. I don't really like getting people out of bed (but I will if its needed for recovery) - I prefer the "train wrecks" that are too sick to get out of bed.

I don't particularly like giving po meds - especially if its something that requires little in the way of RN skill to assess.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

I loathe hearing that crash and thud, or seeing a patient fall from too far away to be able to do anything, or finding a patient who has fallen.

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

Cleaning liquid poo...on someone with groin nec fasc. Bonus if there's a big ol' pannus in the way...wait, that's just about all groin nec fasc pts. I had one fairly recently where she'd lost most of her external genetalia, extended up into the abdomen and within an inch of her rectum. She had a rectal tube but it failed--she was a very big woman and her weight compressed the tube. Stool got up into her open lower belly and into her lady parts.

My out-loud words were "what do I do, and where the heck do I start??!?"

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Specializes in Behavioral Health.
I loathe hearing that crash and thud, or seeing a patient fall from too far away to be able to do anything, or finding a patient who has fallen.

You have weird tasks at your work.

The first time I did trach care I almost threw up. It wasn't even the smell, it was the feeling of warm mucus flowing up the suction tube, across my gloved hand, ever so slowly. I just thought, "That man's snot is in my hand right now," and had an immediate reaction. Since most things in trach care are done in numbers of seconds, I just started counting in my head (5-10 seconds of suction, 10-15 second break, 5-10 seconds of suction, etc) to keep me from thinking too much.

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I agree with many of the ones already posted so I'll add one I haven't seen yet.

I hate changing the opsite dressing over the central line of a hospice patient. I hate it because the RULES or P&P states you can't place gauze over the tubing to keep the opsite from sticking so when you change a dressing, you have to use adhesive remover and slowly, slowly peel that opsite off the tubing to the site. That drives me crazy because I'm so afraid I'll jostle the Huber needle out.

Infection control my orifice. . . . . .:rolleyes:

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trach care

just. too. much. mucous.

I can handle a dog team foaming at the mouth after a nice mush, some of it even flies back to the sled (passengers are at a disadvantage). Copious sticky, slurpy, slimey, and sometimes smelly snot coming out of the trach = blech

the only thing that genuinely frightens me about trach care is when you replace the inner cannula and you activate that cough/gag reflex and a nice sticky steaming ball of sputum goes flying across the room. everybody should take cover.

once timed it perfectly and it hit my least favorite PCC in the back of the head. GOAL!!!

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