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Even nurses can get squeamish, but it's not always what you'd expect.
The triggers span green, brown and all the vibrant colors of the digestive rainbow. Sudden squeamishness is prompted, for some, by fountains of phlegm and, for others, by certain fragrant excretions.
In the nursing profession, it’s often just called “the one thing” -- that single human function or unappealing appendage that can instantly disgust and distress seasoned medical professionals who otherwise handle all sorts of discharges, emissions and oozing with barely a wince.
“Even though very little in the way of bodily fluids bother me, I do have one thing that sparks the heebie-jeebies,” said Barb Dehn, a women’s health nurse practitioner who has often lectured at Stanford University.
“Despite years of attending births with gushing amniotic fluid, blood and other slimy secretions, doing gynecologic exams on sex workers, and changing dressings for people with gangrene, the one thing that makes me gag is … wait for it … the sight of dentures in a glass. No kidding, I can't stand it and begin to retch every time,” said Dehn, who works at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, Calif. “When I was caring for some elderly relatives, I could do everything else: change diapers, change oozing dressings, give enemas. But brushing their dentures was just too much for me. Go figure.”
Ask 10 nurses the same question – what is your “one thing?” – and you may hear 10 different answers.
Warning for the easily grossed out: This is stomach-turning stuff.
For Terry Ann Black, who spent 46 years nursing in Vermont and Maryland, it’s “anything having to do with the eyes,” including punctures and foreign bodies.
“Why do eyes bother me? Not really sure, but I think I am afraid that something will gush out of them,” said Black, author of a “Caring is Not Enough,” an end-of-life planning workbook. “I also had a recurring patient who had a fake eye and he would pop it out just to get a reaction. I accommodated him.”
For Sandy Navalta, a certified nursing assistant in San Francisco, the problem is way at the other end.
"The one thing that absolutely grosses me out are situations where a patient has been constipated for days. When the patient is given a stool softener, what comes out is three days of hard stool followed by projectile diarrhea,” Navalta said. “And that diarrhea flows down the leg and into the cast, if the patient is wearing one – and, yes, that has happened to me. I've had to clean it up.”
And for Deonne Brown Benedict, a family nurse practitioner and owner of Charis Family Clinic in Edmonds, Wash., the human juice that makes her woozy her is something with which many of us also struggle.
Her impetus is vomitus.
“I almost didn't become a nurse because I figured I might come in contact with vomit more than once in my career. Thankfully, it hasn't been as frequent as I had envisioned,” said Benedict, who has invested 17 years in the medical profession.
She vividly recalls an early, nursing-student moment when one of her first patients began to hurl. As the woman upchucked, Benedict tossed her an emesis basin, “and went running out of the room so that I wouldn't be the next person to lose it,” she said.
“I happened to see a group of eager medical students looking for a good ‘case study,’ so I pointed them right to my patient. They went right in, probably wondering what had happened to the nurse on duty.”
Benedict “recovered,” she said, from her guilt and her own wave of nausea and forced herself to “toughen up in this area.”
At least in terms of cookie tossings, some people gag when they see others vomit because it’s believed that mirror neurons in their brains make them more empathetic and cause their bodies to emulate what they see. Like forming tears when you see someone crying, experts say.
Following similar logic, Stanford lecturer Dehn theorizes that many nurses have varied causes for their on-the-job cases of the cold sweats because they all are wired differently, and have had distinct life experiences that they can't check at the examination-room door.
She points to the brain’s limbic system, which help control the body’s reactions to and actions during perceived moments of self-preservation.
“In my own opinion, it must derive from an imprinting that occurs early on in life, and that there are neural pathways that get laid down early and maybe get reinforced throughout life,” Dehn said.
This may explain why Becki Hawkins, a nurse who worked for 30 years in oncology and hospice in the Tulsa area, sites just one aversion when it comes to hands-on human care.
“Not the blood, not the open wounds, not the poo, not the body odor, nor the feet,” Hawkins said.
“The only thing that would really make me scoot out of a room real quick was,” she added, “when a tracheotomy patient would cough up a huge, green ball of phlegm into my face – accidentally and without warning.”
Let's be honest, though, that's going to make pretty much anyone scoot.
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Leave a Comment:
OMG...as an OB RN of over 20 years, I can still see a colleague of mine running like hell from a room where a patient was vomiting. If she even heard someone retch, she would start gagging herself. Me, it's always that first incision into the skin. After that, none of it bothers me, and I've seen some gore in my career. Something about that first cut.
I'm with them on the vomit. I'm not a nurse, but I can't stand to see it, hear it or smell it. If I do, I join in. I even start gagging when people tell stories about it. I can handle anything else. Blood, stools, urine. Just not vomit. And spiders. But that's it. Dolls and clowns. I'm done.
I could never be a nurse unfortunately.....takes a special person. I faint at the first sign of blood.
From the patient's point of view, it's embarrassing. I was in the hospital with severe diarrhea, too sick to leave my bed and those nurses were so nice to me. Every one of them just wanted me to get well. I so appreciated their kindness. Nurses. They'll all go to heaven.
When I first read the headline, I had something else in mind.... ;-) C'mon now, 90% of you guys did too...
Have a nice day...
It sounds like it's a Darwin thing...evolution made vomit and feces smell bad so we wouldn't poison ourselves by eating them. (I know...now I've got YOU gagging, too).
Gun shot wound to the head ! Seeing the inside of somebodys skull made me vomit almost everytime. Especially if the object had exited the face. Just plain nasty !
Seeing a person who loves to smile but doesn't know what a toothbrush is. The food and stuff that's caked on their yellowing teeth makes me want to puke. I can only imagine someone kissing them and tasting a hot dog they had 3 days ago..........Enjoy your lunch !!!!
Creek Dog...LMFAO!!!!!!!!
"When I first read the headline, I had something else in mind.... ;-)"
LOL Funny, dawg!
Ha everyone seems to be forgeting the one thing that alway makes nurses want to throw up! Buying their own health insurance!
I'm one of the 10% that doesn't get it I guess... LOL
Watching Obama give a speech!
It IS Time For An American Universal HealthCare System. Do away with the Greedy and DeathDealing insurance companies;Here IS an Example; after a PAYING And Policy PAID Insured Patient get's the word from the insurance corporation:
HealthLink said the decision not to pay for Lewis' surgeries was made by
United Security Life and Health, which it said is Lewis' primary health
provider. United Security Life and Health did not return requests for comment
from ABCNews.com. This SCOUNDREL insurance "issuer" did not care about their policyholder but their own ceo profit. AND. AND!, AND!!! in 2010 its CEO STEVEN HEMSLEY was Slathered with $49,000,000 pay to reject paid policyholders lifesaving operations.
If you put your relative in a nursing home, better visit them daily or set up a monitoring system. There are alot of wonderful nurses out there who are unappreciated an deal with life or death situations everyday. unfortunately my mother died of a massive seizure after being left slumped over in her wheelchair for 3 hours. The nurses excuse..... I just got here I dont know where the other nurse from this morning is... The girl down the street works at the hospital an got her degree from the technical school across town. she always brags that she never needs to buy Valium or other medication when she can get it from her elderly patients. Hows the relatives gonna know ????, Shes right, how are we gonna know ???????
Cassandra, it's really the other way around. Humans sense of what smells bad evolved to warn against potential bio contaminants. The smell of poo and vomit was around long before humans evolved
What can compare with a Phlegm Smoothie?!
...Mm, Mm, M-M-M!!!
See the recipe below...
------RECIPE------
• Have 40 t0 50 people who are suffering from an upper respritory infection hock-a-lue into a pitcher.
• Use a wire wisk to gently blend the various lues into a slightly homogenized, yet still very slippery consistency.
• It is always best to serve at approximately 10 degrees above room temperature.
• Phlegm smoothies should always be served fresh in order to preserve the incredibly smooth texture. However, if a smoothie has been left out for a day or two, it will tend to develop a slightly crunchy/chewy layer on top in which case you have the makings of a very special treat!
• Gently stir the crunchy/chewy layer into the smoothie in order to evenly distribute these semi-solid bits. Then use a straw to drink the smoothie. The straw is important because it is what makes the experience so special! Occassionally, a chunk will become lodged inside the straw which will require extra sucking efforts to free it. Once it does, the snot-rocket will gleefully propel into your mouth at high speed, followed by a bursting, viscous stream of loose phlegm.
WHAT A TREAT!!!
Neither do I, but I'm sure it's some sort of gutter talk. Please, don't anyone feel the need to enlighten us! Thank you.
Eh, phlegm USE to bother me, but my in home patient has a Tracheotomy, so I'm use to it now. I suction him regularly and empty the suction machine daily.
Brushing his nasty teeth...now that's another story.
@ Mozzie:
I'm glad that you've had such good experiences with nurses.Indeed,some nurses (and other healthcare workers) are true angels,but heads up! Plenty of them are not to be trusted.Some are genuinely evil. Read "Nurses Who Kill" by Clifford Linedecker and William Burt.Others mean well but were coerced into taking an assignment where they couldn't possibly meet all of their patients' needs.
The ones who do display good attitudes toward patients often either haven't been in the profession long enough to become hostile about the way they get treated by coworkers and their workplace administrators,or they are not dependent on that employer financially,or they are very good at faking it.
Many customers would be horrified at the cruel and slanderous statements that nurses,physicians,aides,make about patients in their care,several times per shift,in any hospital or nursing home in the nation.If you're lucky they'll wait until the patient and their family are out of earshot.If you're not so lucky they'll accuse you to your face and tell everyone else they work with things such as:You're too lazy to do more for yourself when you actually have a neurological disorder.,You're hateful and uncooperative when all you did was tactfully question what one of them said.,You're a should-be felon trying to illegally abuse narcotics when you actually have a legitimate need for pain or anxiety medication.,You're a pervert who's doing it on purpose when you're incontinent of feces or urine.I could go on, but those are four common ones.
I understand the point of this discussion is supposed to be about things that physically nauseate nurses though,so I wrote a separate post about that.Enjoy.
I could never do your job. Thankfully. their are people as beautifull as you to perform such a vital function.
kcstrawberryblonde: Whoa, there, girl. Evidently you had one or more really bad experience(s), but you are so off-base in your universal condemnation of healthcare workers. I'm an old nurse, damn near Went-to- school-with-Florence-Nightingale-old, but don't go around spewing hateful (to say nothing of privacy-infringing) comments to or about my patients. Neither do 95% of my co-workers. I agree, the remaining 5% shouldn't happen, so report it. Neither verbal abuse nor privacy infringements are acceptable or tolerated.
@ californianurse:
That's very encouraging to hear that you have been a nurse for a lot of years and never witnessed wide-spread verbal abuse of patients by healthcare providers.In some parts of Missouri the profession is overwhelmed by it.Then again the areas where I've witnessed it taking over entire healthcare facilities are also the areas with the lowest pay to healthcare professionals. Apparently places with low pay attract the cream of the crap-which I knew,but didn't realize there was THAT much difference between geographical areas.
It would be interesting to see a survey concerning which parts of the U.S. nurses have witnessed what I described on a big scale.
What about horizontal hostility between nurses e.g. backbiting,gossiping,tattling,maybe even sabotage? Ever worked anywhere that that was so pervasive it created a hostile work environment?
Becki Hawkins cites, not sites. Please quit depending on spell check!
Yeah, that's pretty bad. Also, I believe it's "stomach-churning" and not "stomach-turning". A stomach pretty much stays in the same place, but it can become agitated.
I've got two daughters who are RN's, and one which is a FNP, and all three laughed at the "dentures in a glass" bull@!$%#! LOL
I was treated much worse as a fast food worker (albeit over 20 years ago) by the public, than I ever have been being a nurse.
Got to wonder when a 'nurse' refers to her patients as 'customers' how long s/he's really been in the profession...
p/s for the record, I wrote my previous post BEFORE reading the majority of the posts on this thread. I laughed myself silly...I thought I was the only one who had issues with saliva, teeth, bad breath...heck, anything to do with the 'mouth'. I was amazed, and thankful, to read all of you who share my phobia :)
Paramedic for 24 years. Blood, body fluids, so far no problems. Vomit and phlegm, I have gagged a few times only and made it without wretching myself. Pretty proud of that! In fact never have vomited and wear that as sort of a "badge of honor" over the years! But the one thing I live in fear of, but have yet to see, is an eyeball out of the socket. I don't like anything to do with the eyes, and I have seen some eye injuries over the years as well, but I made it through those. No fishooks, as yet, and not sure how that will be, but the protruding eyeball is my biggest fear. I think it goes back to my very first basic EMT teacher in the 80's who told the class that if they move the eyes, the protruding eyeball will move, too. Ever since, I have had a great fear of this very thing happening.
I hear people tell us that it takes a special type person to do what we do. I can't tell you how much respect I and my fellow pre-hospital workers have for the nurses and aides that deal with much more bodily functions than we do. Kudo's for sure. To me (us) THAT takes a special person.
The only time I ever gagged as a nurse was a day I should've stayed home to begin with because I was nauseous with the early stages of the flu. I had an unconscious trached patient with pneumonia who had been suctioned all day long into a container that was attached to the wall and was supposed to be emptied each shift. I came on for third shift, suctioned the patient and noticed the container completely full of brown-green-yellow phlegm. When I went to remove it from the wall, it popped off and splattered all over the wall, the table, the floor and me. It was thick and stringy and dripping. I couldn't get housecleaning at that hour, so I proceeded to clean it up myself with paper towels, gagging and fighting the impulse to vomit the whole time. Ever since that night, I have an aversion to phlegm.
Geo-3053278
I was going to make sure and mention the CNAs as well, including those who work in long term care. I don't see how they do it, especially for what they earn.
For me it was always nose bleeds. For whatever reason I will get light headed with them, and nothing bothers me and I have seen it all. I have had a patients bowels fall out of a surgical wound and hand to hold them with sterile clothes wet clothes until I got them to surgery and it didn't bother me. Angela LD, as a nurse I will say this, some hospitals and schools teach to call patients your customer so you treat them as such. As for being treated worse? Lets see in six months one trauma unit I worked in, a patient broke a nurses hip when he kicked her into the wall, another broke a nurses clavicle, and there two nurses that had their fingers broken. The fact is, patients are often not in their right mind when we are caring for them and they do and will do bad things. I have been hit, kicked, spit on, groped and all of which we are expected to just take. Now come back to me when you can say the same.
I started my career in respiratory therapy in 1998, moved on to nursing school and work in pediatric intensive care, and have now completed my education quest by graduating from nurse anesthesia school. In 14 years through many hospitals, the one "thing" that always gets me is…….breast milk. Mind you, I have 2 children that my wife breast fed and I had absolutely no problem with that, but in the hospital setting, specifically the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, you can be exposed to a LOT of breast milk. I would see NICU nurses pull milk out of the freezer, thaw it, test the temperature, and proceed to feed a baby…….all with ungloved hands. It's a body fluid, people! It was secreted out of someone, specifically, someone you know nothing about. Yuck. Gag. Blech!
All milk is a body fluid, secreted out of something we don't know.
I completely understand you. My question is, why are NICU nurses not gloved? Not just for feeding but all the time? These babies are in NICU because they are struggling to sustain the delicate thread of life they have been given and should be held, cuddled and caressed to encourage them to thrive, but gloved people!!! Even the mother, who had that baby within herself for all those months, is required to glove and robe once a baby is admitted to NICU. As for the feeding, you are also absolutely correct. While studies have shown that very few things are transmitted through breast milk, there still ARE things that do. To handle someone else's bodily fluids without proper protection for yourself is ghastly and to handle a patient that has virtually no immune system without proper protection for THEM is unaccptable. They should be reported.
God bless nurses, they are on the front line in patient care. Most are dedicated and hard working, but still...some get careless in a long days work. Usagi-sensei's comment on the nurses not wearing gloves for instance. When my hubby was in the hospital I would watch the nurse put gloves on, get distracted by something..in one case, adjusting the tv and playing with the remote, then go right back to treating a wound as if the gloves were still sterile. The gloves are to protect the patient not the nurse!
You get no argument from me. What I've been able to deduce over the years is that the nurses probably become accustomed to just working with the milk. I suppose they don't think of it as a body fluid over time, or they become blunted to the fact since these little guys get fed at least every 3 hours. Either way, it's gross. I absolutely raise my flag for the little NICU guys getting all the breast milk they can…..just use gloves.
Breast milk is normally sterile when it's secreted from the mammary glands.It's theoretically possible to catch a disease that caused viruses or bacteria to be present in breast milk,but that usually happens to neonates who have zero immunity built up. If you're repulsed by mothers' milk I'm guessing,as an RRT,you did NOT do well around thick green loogies. Just saying...
Well duh, isn't that what the NICU is for, only neonates. What neonate has immunity already built up? Can you tell by sight?
Jeanne, sterile gloves protect both the patient and the nurse! You should have reminded them if you noticed an issue. Most dressings though are not necessary to do in a "sterile" manner, sterile gloves have their own package and once you have sterile gloves on, you can't touch anything that isn't. Regular gloves do protect the nurse more than the patient.
I work in a medical lab and before that workedin emergency patient care. The one thing that gets me more than anything is green sticky sputum. Just typing this out made my throat close up. That and bugs in the ear. The first time I ever seen a doctor remove a large bug from someone's ear, I felt my whole body tingle and I had to walk out of the room before I passed out.
Oh Carolyn.
Boy, you really wouldn't like me. I have almost black sputum from years of smoking and it grosses ME out!! God bless you all. I couldn't imagine being in health care. You want to talk about a NASTY job? You ALL deserve to be paid 50 fold more than what you make.
Large globs of multicolored earwax. Blegh !
Carolyn - stay in the lab -
Yes, I totally agree with the denture and anything that has too do with the mouth!its not just me its pretty much every Nurse and Nursing Assistant that I work with! Ive been working in the health care field from hospice to Nursing homes and now the hospital!! I can pretty much do anything clean anything, but the mouth totally makes me gag!!!
I hate dentures, too! As an ICU, I have seen a
lot, but taking out someone's dentures to clean totally grosses me out. That and looking at yellow, horned greyish toenails...Yuk!!!
Just think about what the poor person went through to get those dentures. I'm working on a set myself, and it's not like I don't see a dentist, just bad teeth.
Bubba, its not the fact the poor soul has dentures, its the idea of cleaning them that willies out some nurses!
Personally, dentures don't bother me - but like the nurse in the article - anything with eyeballs! I worked in the OR's for years, could work the goriest trauma, spent most of my time in cardiac surgery, but if someone asked me to help in the eye surgery room, I'd beg, plead, and trade my first born....just something about that eye pried open.....oooohhheeeeggggg!
the one thing that could make me hurl was:
a tunneling bed sore! when you can stuff 7 or 8 rolls of gauze (kerlix) into and down someone's thigh, THAT IS SOMETHING YOU JUST DON'T SEE EVERY DAY.
as in once in 30 years! which was enough for me, thank-you very much.
to all the people who have trouble with dentures or oral care.
imagine kissing someone with dentures!
or a partial!
you can't imagine it???? well, you probably have!!!!!
Rosie1- My niece who normally works in intensive care was filling in in the ER one day when a patient came in who was in a psychotic state on PCP & some other drugs. He was strapped down pretty tightly on the gurney but struggling fiercely to free himself. Before they could get him sedated one of his eyes actually popped out of the socket. The resident actually panicked and bolted out of the room so while my niece held the eye over the socket with gauze and poured saline on it another nurse called for an ophthalmologist. He came down, gloved up and popped the eye back into the socket using his thumb. According to him if you don't cut or puncture the eyeball they're pretty difficult to crush.
Needless to say I have almost boundless respect for my niece.
Actually, I can't handle watching any kind of surgical procedure. I'm fine if I'm performing with the knife (I went to a school where vivissection/dissection were required for A&P) but can't watch. I've tried to watch veterniary surgeries, c-sections, plastics, I faint every blessed time!
Hartvig - ahhh! Your niece has my respect as well! I remember vividly standing for 30 minutes+ with my hands shoved in a trauma patients chest helping hold organs out of the way so a trauma surgeon could sew a tear in a major vessel closed - exciting, no problem (yes, the patient lived), worked amputations, gangreanous wounds, you name it - but a poor soul who came in after a botched suicide attempt with a shotgun under his chin, eye hanging out....almost passed out.
@ Carolyn: Bugs in ears ARE hard to remove because it's so hard to get the WHOLE bug out with forceps or irrigation. It's really impressive to see all of the foreign objects that little kids insert into their ears and up their noses- buttons,ball bearings, pieces of cat food...if they can imagine it,they'll get it there.We haven't even touched on what all little kids will ingest.
Concerning dentures,it's not the dentures per se. It's the goobers that are on them when you take them out of someone else's mouth, or it's when you start to clean them for a patient and discover some lazy co-worker put them in the denture cup without rinsing off the goobers-so when you open the denture cup you find a bunch of goobers floating in the water.
I work OB so I had to get used to blood, poo and vomit. It's part of our job. What I can't stand is anything to do with bones or joints. I twisted my ankle several times as a teen and feel it every time I see it in slo-mo on TV. I usually end up covering my eyes. My aversion has gotten to the point I don't do animal bones either. I had to flee to the other room during the breaking of the wishbone last week. Keep me away from ortho!
As a mom, you get used to a lot of things: diarrhea, vomiting, drool, scrapes, blood, etc. I am pretty impervious to most of these things now...at least, when it comes from kids.
However, dentures (my mom is elderly and I take care of her), spitting, drooling, by adults, absolutely sicken me. My mom doesn't spit or drool, but I can't even look at her dentures!
Think ick and that's what you get. The look on my husband's face the first time he had to change our baby's diaper had me busting a gut laughing. He placed one hand under the kid's neck and with the other he grabbed his ankles, held the kid out in front of him as far as he could get, and hustled him to the bathroom where he could use the shower massage! Awwww, our baby's first hosing!
I brush my dog's teeth every night: does that gross anyone out?
No, brushing a dog's teeth doesn't gross me out. Neither does giving them a bath when they've had a particularly nasty bout of diarrhea. Maybe I equate dogs with kids, but somebody has to fix these things when they happen!
Your story about your husband and baby is funny and I can relate. My husband would change my son's diaper when it was just pee, but only when he was in charge and I was out shopping or whatever. Poopy diaper? I think he just prayed that I would get home quickly, as I almost always had to change those. Funny, but when I got home, the baby just happened to poop right before I walked in the door. "Oh, he must have just done that!" Yeah...right.
I think when they are our "babies" and our job we just block the disgust. Dogs our our babies/kids too.
I don't have kids but worked with them for years. Have gotten other people's babie's poop innadvertantly on my hands (they wiggle with poopie diaper). I'm grossed out but not horrified. Nannys in the home don't wear gloved of course.
Funny that many men perhaps people not used to sucking that up as their responsibilty haven't done whatever work we do interally to not be bothered by baby's poop. It never bugged me...since I ws 12.
carolyn G,
As a practicing nurse of 30 plus years, respiratory secretions are way up there on my list. talking about bugs in the ear. when i was a young nurse, I had an order to irrigate a patient's ears. she was an elderly contracted female who was removed from a questionable home setting. I irrigated one ear then turned her over to see bugs running out the other ear and up her face. I left the patient with the other nurse who was helping and went to stand out in the hall for a minute to compose myself.
Sounds like a horror movie!
Sounds really sad
I've been an MRI tech for almost 20 years now ... and, God bless Respiratory Therapists, a patient or two that "coughed" and out of the tracheostomy flies onto the neck this greenish-yellowish ... ACCK!! - phlegm wad ... I still get queasy thinking of an open trache with the patient coughing something out of it! :)
Now that's what you call a smoker's cough.
This story makes everyone want to stay just as healthy and independent as possible right up until the bloody end. Nursing homes contain the worst instances of human gunk...
rgray57; Oh that sounds horrible. I can imagine what they were feeling inside of their ear. I've seen people absolutely loosing their mind over a tiny ant in their ear. I think I would too. We've seen it all, beetle, flies, roaches, you name it. I really don't like bugs so that is up there on my list of dislikes.
Like others here have also mentioned; it's common practice to sit around the lunch table and talk about blood and guts and everything else while causally eating; even when the cafeteria is serving spaghetti for lunch.
Sputum is the most horrendous disgusting thing to me. I can handle any sort of poop, blood, bile, urine, but please oh please don't describe your patient's sputum to me. Thank god I work in the NICU where there is very little output of any kind. Mouth care on adults is pretty gross too, the secretions that pool up in the mouth sure end up looking like SPUTUM.
I used to joke that you could sort all the workers in a hospital by what type of bodily secretion they most hate and end up with a pretty accurate list of who works where.
After 30 yrs in nursing the only thing that disgusts me is obozo's face
Time to retire you ignorant swamp cow.
Been in the medical biz for 25 years and what I am seeing from Obamacare, that is not even in full effect yet, sickens me to death. These people who support this crap have no idea what they are in for. That makes me more sick than anything I have seen yet.
it disgusts me to think that you are a nurse and might some day take care of me or someone that I love given you say such horrible judgemental things.
That's your President you are talking about. Of, I presume, your country.
I hated Bush because of what he did in getting us into a false war. It came out that his administration had misinterpretted CIA intelligence and also made it clear they didn't want to hear what didn't support their lust for War in Iraq. They started planning that war, it came out, before 9/11.
THousands have been killed as a result. Lives have been ruined. Bush did not care and was oblivious at the least. I hated him as President and did not respect him as a human being.
But I did not disrespect him as President in the hateful way you do here. Your hate is scary. I would not want you to be my nurse when I was in a vulnerable place.
People are basically disgusting creatures. You've got to overlook their phlegm and sputum and move on.
Yeah, we humans really do produce a lot of disgusting stuff.
It was always eye injuries and infections that did it for me. Saw some nasty eye infections while working overseas as a medical missionary nurse.
I'm not in health care and all of that stuff bothers me, dental work especially, but when it was my kids when they were little, didn't bother me at all, now that they are grown, it bothers me again. Human adaptation is amazing!
My dad wanted me to lance a boil on his back for him once. I was only 12 and couldn't bring myself to make the cut. I mean, that's my dad's skin.
As a healthcare worker for 30 years, the one thing I can't stand is also phlegm. More like the hacking and bringing up of the phlegm that does me in.
But one thing that cracks me up is (and you can ask most healthcare workers this) we can talk about any body fluid, body function, injury, surgery (whatever) while we're having lunch and no one bats an eye. Sometimes i catch myself in a discussion about some-such in a non-healthcare setting and have to stop when I realize, hey -- these people I'm talking to aren't healthcare workers and they're turning green!
Tee hee Lisa, you are so right!!!! Even the stuff that may gross us out when we're in the room we can talk about during lunch without batting an eye!
Yea, Rosie, even when their serving spaghetti in the cafeteria. LOL! Noting is off limits.
a respiratory tech told me she wanted a snot sundae wih a booger on top. i said i couldn't do that, but would a cat turd rolled in bread crumbs do?
The one thing that absolutely positively disgusts me...medicaid cards.
If you are really a nurse, which I doubt, then please do us a favor and abandon the profession. Nursing started as a self-sacrificing aid to the poor. If you do not like the fact that our nation has decided that it helps our nation become stronger when poor people receive medical care, then either the profession or the country is not right for you.
Since you are an ER nurse I am sure you have seen your share of "poor" people come in with their nails done wearing Coach everything to get their free health care with their medicaid cards so I don't blame you a bit..... And by the way, our nation does not become stronger when we give free health care in ER's to people who are gaming the system.
To EERN; I don't have Medicaid, but you disgust ME!!!
I Don't have Medicaid but you and people like you Disgust ME!!!!!
ERRN: I am a single mother of two kids - my kids qualify for medicaid. If my kids came into your work, you'd probably be disgusted by that card. However, in less than 2 years (June 2, 2014), I graduate medical school and will begin my residency. Kind of ironic that someone that disgusts you just might be in a position to be a doctor you are working with someday.
ERRN, If you really are a nurse, you are a sad excuse for a human being. Many many children would be sick and die if it were not for Medicade. I have never had to have any kind of assistance of any kind and am fortunate to have plenty to live on BUT I realize that everyone is not as fortunate as I. I couldnt care less for the shysters who leech off the system but children cannot help themselves if they have nothing. You really should do mankind a favor and find other employment.
LTRN, until 2005, states were responsible for finding fraud in Medicaid. The feds thought they weren't doing a good job of it, since they found so little fraud. Since 2008, when a very intensive program using private companies auditing for fraud, with incentives for finding it, auditors have only found about $20 milliion in fraud at a cost of cost the U.S. at least $102 million in auditing fees. The audits are costing a lot more than the fraud. Your myth about the poor defrauding us is tiresome and shows your alck of compassion and lack of facts.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-14/medicaid-fraud-audits-cost-five-times-amount-u-s-found.html
I guess you've never seen what gets sold in the thrift stores. I am not poor, but not rich either, so I shop there. Coach bags are usually used once or twice by the wealthy and then given away. You can find Coach bags and other Coach brand items wherever a thrift store is located near an affluent area.
You hate Medicaid cards? How dumb. I had an employee insurance card; clearly states this on the card. The idiots at UCH always read it as a Medicaid card, just because I worked at the city/county hospital for the poor/charity and others. Major trauma Level 1 hospital. No way this is a Medicaid card, but they did bill Medicaid and subsequently got into alot of trouble! How does a full time employee have medicaid? WE DON'T. Watch your perceptions. other things that disgust me? msnbc editor's picks!
Right on ERRN and LTRN. I don't work in healthcare, but nothing irks my gall more than to see someone paying for groceries with their WIC check or welfare card while talking non stop to someone on an iphone. I have had the same job for almost 11 years and make a fair wage but I sure as hell can't afford an iphone. I do have a smartphone, but I got the best I could get that was free with the re-up contract. Back in the day (actually not so very long ago) if you were on welfare, you weren't allowed cable tv or a phone because if you could afford them, you didn't need government help. I've even seen a guy on a streetcorner. You know, the ones that dress in ratty clothes with a "God Bless you" sign hoping for handouts. After seeing him on the same corner for two weeks, I thought about giving him a few bucks since he was always there. Then I saw him in the parking lot of the gas stations across the street from his corner talking to somone on a cell phone so I figured if he could afford a phone, he didn't need my help.
I'll get off my soapbox now. As a mom, though, there's not much that grosses me out unless it's really smelly loose stool. When I first started taking karate, one of the young kids lost his dinner during class and I and another girl alerted the instructor so he could divert the class, then quietly left the mat, got bucket, gloves, rags and disinfectant and had it cleaned up in short order. I heard one person comment "Well, we know who the moms are, don't we?" :)
usagi-sensei, again someone without any real facts. Many people can get a free iphone or other phone through programs established by their states. These are used, recycled phones turned into Apple or distributors and then donated to the program. If you are on medicaid, you can get a $9.95 credit each month on your bill and a free phone. This program started in 1985 and cell phones were added in 2008 under George Bush. It doesn't cost the Federal government anything since it is a program run by the telecom companies. I'm sorry you perpetuate myths about poor people. You found one guy who might be a freeloader. Most poor people are struggling and work hard every day.
I'm not disgusted at those on medicare if they are working and trying to etch out a living. There are many who've paying into the system for years and now need a little of it back; especially in these hard times.
What disgust me is when I see young, able body people who refuse to work, come in with their medicaid cards dressed in top dollar designer clothing, have their Escalade parked out front. They demand first class attention for a scrap or ingrown toenail. They don't want to hear the 10 year old who nearly severed his arm from falling through a glass, they want attention NOW!
They will lean on that damn call button all night long for one thing or another. Oh on top of it, they demand their prescription of Oxycontin and to be fed. It's the ones in true need of medical care who seem to be the most quiet.
We brace ourselves on the 1st and the 15th when the public assistance checks are received. Our ER is then full of drunks needing detox. They fight us, cuss us, cry all night long, puke all over the place. Then they use their phone to call and fight with their baby-daddy/momma or they come in and the screaming matches start.
I worked 8 years in an emergency room these are the people who clog up the ER beds and take up a great deal of our time. They are the primary reason when you come in for an actual emergency ailment, you're waiting hours on end to be seen.
I'm a critical care nurse and also agree on the denture thing. There is something visceral about dentures and the saliva associated with it. Its not just being in a cup; its when you get to brush/clean them. The other thing that can make me gag is vomit. And once again, its not the act of vomitting, I could watch people throw up all day and not be bothered; its cleaning up the vomit that makes me retch.
Yes, actually, I do have real facts. If you are on relief and are relatively ambulatory, you don't need a free phone, you need to get off your lazy duff and get a job. I work with sevaral people in wheelchairs, crutches, canes and the like who would rather hobble into work to earn their money than to sit back and collect welfare so why is it these perfectly healthy people think we owe them a living? I realize there are people who truly need assistance for food and medical and that's what these programs are there for but no one NEEDS a phone, it's a convenience. I don't NEED a phone, but I like the convenience of being able to be in touch with my family when I'm out on the road. When I can no longer afford it, I will downgrade or drop it altogether but the gubment isn't giving me a credit and a free phone so these people should not have one either.
Uh...Nope! I am a real ER RN. And...perhaps you are right...a 20 yo should be able to come in by EMS for her eczema. Forget worrying about the AMI or AAA...someone is demanding a pregnancy test (NOW!) A G5P4 should be able to come in by EMS for her CP from anxiety because she didn't pick up her meds who also has the complaint "worried about starvation because she doesn't get enough food stamps" (but reeks of cig smoke.) AND...we should just love that we are "helping those less fortunate." Those are REAL pts I have had the opportunity to care for and I could go ON and ON and ON!
And that cell phone thing...yes, it is state gov'ts running the program. And whether it is state tax dollars or fees (that we pay every month) from the cell phone companies, WE are still paying for them...taking from the haves and giving to the have nots.
Summer, congratulations to you. I really am happy for you. I am sure you worked very, very hard. I wish you so much luck in your future as a physician. But that is precisely what the system was meant for. Short term. Now you get to payback into the system that helped you. Quite frankly, it is/was a wise investment. But unfortunately, the ones I am talking about are the ones who will never repay. The GIMME GIMME attitude is ingrained and I don't hold out much hope.
Lastly, I worked in a clinic for the working poor. Some of the "richest" people I have ever had the honor to serve. They worked hard, made "too much" for medicaid but were so grateful for anything (no matter how small) we did for them. That is TYPICALLY not the mindset of the welfare recipients. They have their hand out for more, more, more and Carolyn G...you are right on! They are the first ones to complain (and the loudest) about their wait time, but it's because of those mentioned initially that the wait times are what they are. Lol...Karma
perhaps ERRN MEANT fradulent medicare cards. or people who were scaming the medicare system.
i hope so anyway. paul ortiz, rn
ERRN,
in any system there is some kind of abuse. deal with it. you, i and they are all human.
sounds like you need a good long vacation. like for a few years. pershaps you can find your/some humanity somewhere outside of the hospital, because you seem to have lost yours a long time ago, from what you are writing.
go do something else for a while. you aren't doing anyone any favors by staying where you are. ESP not you!
Thank you for the nice words.
Also, while I understand what you talking about, I would just precaution you (well, really, everyone), to not presume everyone on medicaid, or receiving other forms of assistance, are all lazy people that are worthy of your disgust. Yes, I get being upset by abuse - it's upsetting and frustrating. However, it's very judgmental to assume that just because someone received medicaid that they are lazy, not working, etc., etc.
When you begin judging a person you risk making mistakes - and that can be devastating. I have a family member that was very poor. Yes, when he was younger he made bad choices - including dropping out of school, which led to him not being able to obtain gainful employment. He did work, but was eligible for welfare assistance as a result of not making much money. He did get his GED, and was beginning community college classes. He got sick about this time, started loosing weight (rapidly and a large amount). He was a scruffy looking guy because he couldn't afford much. Well, he went to and ER - and encountered people that presumed he was lazy and drug seeking because of the way he looked, and his station in life. This continued for about 2 years - he'd go to the ER and be shuffled out the door - never receiving a proper physical exam and being treated by nurses and physicians that he was just lying about his symptoms. In the meantime, he was getting sicker and sicker - eventually having to drop out of his community college classes and unable to work. He went to the ER again, very, very sick. Finally, he encountered a medical student and a relatively new nurse who took him seriously - they did a proper physical exam of him and found a tumor had eroded his rectum. He died less than 6 weeks later of extensive colon cancer. Had people taken him seriously when he first presented, he may or may not have been saved - but, at least he would've had a better quality of life and possibly his life would've been saved. Had he received proper treatment, he may have lived - which would've allowed him to finish his community college courses and he could very well be a productive member of society.
Yes, there are people that misuse welfare systems. But, when we, as providers, begin to make assumptions about a person - just because of their insurance or appearance - we might miss things that we would catch in another person. This can cost people years of being sick (requiring them to be on assistance even longer) or, worse, their lives.
Actually Paul, I LOVE my job. I have been doing this for quite some time and when I help stabilize/fix REAL problems, I always think, "I am the luckiest person in the world." But those examples above and many, many more like that are very, very trying indeed. But it's a trade off I am willing to make for now.
Along with gallow's humor, I will use other outlets (like this) to relieve stress, and then go back to work with a huge smile.
Summer
As a future physician, surely you understand that colon ca is not something that is typically dx'd in the ER. If he had medicaid then he had a PCM. That is where he should have gotten care and should have been dx'd.
And when real emergencies come in, that last thing any of us "see" is an insurance card, medicaid card or whether the person can pay. We focus on the emergency. It's the non-emergencies that highlight the abuse.
ERRN: I understand this, however, he was sick enough that it warranted further work up. However, had he been treated appropriately in the ER, he would've been admitted for further work-up - where the colon ca would've (could've) been discovered earlier. The fact is, he was mismanaged by ER personal (from nurses to physicians) that believed because he was a medicaid patient, and relatively poor looking, that he was lazy and just drug seeking.
btw - one of the reasons (though certainly not the only reason, nor is this the most common reason) many medicaid adults don't see a primary care physician for themselves -- they DO have co-pays to see the doctor (the amount depends on their income, what state they are in, etc., etc.) for themselves (kids don't have co-pays but adults do). Also, the income guidelines for adults to be on medicaid is very low, low enough that going to a primary care doctor even with medicaid, is out of the reach (financially) for some adults.
Summer
I am sorry to hear that. I can assure you that in-spite of my feelings about medicaid (abuse) I have never "mismanaged" a pt because of his or her insurance status. I may internally roll my eyes when I think someone is seeking or being a dick, but will always take very good care of the pt. And I am fearless when it comes to smacking down a physician when a pt is not getting the care they require.
With that being said, his PCM could have admitted or done a further workup. And if his PCM did not have privileges, he could have had the hospitalist admit if in fact admission was required for a work up.
ERRN, I didn't mean to imply that you would provide substandard care to a patient because of their insurance status - I apologize if that's how it came across. I also get why you would internally roll your eyes when you think someone is seeking or being a dick. What's funny, I've actually seen more patients with non-medicaid insurance seeking or being dicks to nurses and staff than I've seen medicaid patients do this. I'm a non-traditional medical student; I didn't start medical school until I was 32 and I worked in the medical field for 8 years prior to undergrad, so I've seen ample people. I'm glad you would smack down a physician if a patient isn't getting the care they need - patients need advocates for them.
Yes, his PCM could have admitted or done further workup - if he had had a PCM. He didn't have a PCM - because he couldn't afford his $4.00 co-pay to see a PCM. Which is not uncommon (though again, not the primary reason an adult on medicaid may not see a PCM). See, adults on medicaid have co-pays when they see a primary care doctor, but they don't have a co-pay for emergency room services (or if they are admitted to the hospital). So, some adults on medicaid still can only use the ER for their primary medical care, even though they have medicaid to pay for their medical bills.
Don't get me wrong - I really dislike abuse of medicaid. I really wish that people (whether they have medicaid or other insurance) would use a primary care doctor for their non-emergency care - it's cheaper and, more importantly in many ways, better continuity of care.
Anyway, I need to get off here. Back to studying and preparing a presentation on gestational diabetes. Today was a much needed day off after working 10 straight 16+ hour days full of c-sections and vaginal deliveries. Back to work tomorrow :)
Summer
Enjoy your evening! And again, best of luck you you!
EERN is right. Usually the last thing we see, if we see it at all on a patient chart is their insurance or lack their of. We're usually so busy we don't have time to look, nor do we care to; especially if our patient is really sick or injured.
Contrary to popular beliefs by many of our patients, our salaries or bonuses (if any) are NOT based on which patient is or isn't insured. We have to go digging through the charts to find it and that is only when we decide the patient needs follow up treatment. Depending on their insurance status, we are limited on where we send them. Many private practices will not take an uninsured or under insured patient so we have to send them to our clinic. Our hands are tied at that point.
Your feelings, some of them, are not based on having all the facts and also, on your gathering anecdotal data.
Say five percent of medicaid recipients have a iphone or some belongings that make them look rich and like cheaters. They are going to STICK OUT to you so you will remember them. You will not remember the 95% of Medicaid folks who are not ostentatious. That is how human memory works. WE note that which sticks out...but in doing that it makes it seem more usual.
Any government program...any program period...has it's cheats. It is better to over pay a few people who cheat rather than HURT the many more who are in true need. Sure, tighten the MEdicaid system if you need to. No one should have an iphone and
THing is..relatives and well off friends give you gifts. How do we know her boyfriend or Mom didn't gte her an iphone and is paying her bill for Xmas but would not pay for her or her kids healthcare?
Secondly...not sure folks are aware that cellphones (not smart phones though) are CHEAPER than a land line. Lower income people OFTEN have a cell phone BUT NO landline. A phone is neccessar to make drs appts and deal with bills and schools and work, very often. Going without a phone at all (which some are suggesting as again MANY have no land line) is too hard. There aren't hardly any pay phones any more and many low income people don't have phone access at work.
Thirdly, Some of you mock the "obviously" able bodied. Im one of those people. I have some yet undiagnosed form of arthritis. Sometimes I need a cane sometimes I don't. I have rotator cuff tears on boht shoulders that can't be surgically repaired. On a good day I appear fine. On a bad day I can only stay in my small house and even going food shopping is out of the question. I can't vacume or clean my house. I can't wash my hair (I don't have shower I have handheld on a bad day it hurts). On a bad day being on my laptop typing is hard.
I do not have any kind of job I could do given my up and down condition. Also, when I overdo it it gets worse. last year I ended up on crutches because of my feet. (again not surgical...I have a real injury ffound by ultrasound though that because of inflammation issue goes on and on). I could not do what I had been doing for work
If you have injuries who wants to hier you? It' s differet if you are already in a secure job that you don't have to use your body for. I was working in people' s homes using my body. I have no upto date skills that transfer into something I could do since typing bothers me. No one wants someone who is not reliable because thier body isn't. Some days I cann't walk far enough to leave the house. this happened last week and I have bad shoulders now so can't go on crutches. I have to rest my feet to get them slightly better or I'd be totally screwed since I cann't now use crutches.
Moral of storry: YOU CAN"T KNOW SOMEONE"S CONDITION BY LOOKING AT THEM
maybe they even have cancer or some other chronic problem. People can have good and bad days. There are a ton of conditions like this...Lupus and MS for some people, comes to mind. Very hard to GET NEW WORK in a new field when you have this kind of thing
so maybe try not being so judgemental? hmm?
usagi-sensei, you say "you don't need a free phone, you need to get off your lazy duff and get a job".
I worked with people with disability for over 30 years in a program designed to assist them in obtaining and keeping employment. You are so very wrong about the phone. Many of us lobbied for the program started in 1985 that allowed poor people to get a refurbished or recycled phone and a small credit on their phone costs so they could have a phone to obtain employment. If you don't have a phone for call backs or to make contacts, you are isolated and will not be able to get work. In 2008 the program was expanded to allow more states and updated technology like cell phones, which many employers now require for employment, especially shift work.
You make so many hateful assumptions about humans, and perpetuate so many false myths. Poor people want to get better jobs, just like anyone else. Poor people are generally poor because of mental illness, physical disabilities and other mental disabilities, not because they want to be poor.
I don't know how you stand to be around the people you work with. Instead of thinking the worst possible things about people, you need to review the facts and realize that there is very little fraud. The reason why many poor people are in the ER is because the rest of the system refuses to serve them. Obamacare will be a great assistance to many people, but it still relies on private insurance, and a great many of the most destitute will not be able to afford insurance.
When a front-line medical professional has lost their compassion, it is time to move into the back office or into research for a while and see if you can regain your humanity and your empathy. dealing with real life people in need is obviously not your current best position.
Unfortunately ERRN and LTRN's attitudes toward people on Medicaid are not isolated,but rather are pervasive among healthcare providers,including physicians.It's particularly bad in ER's.In Missouri it's to the point that ER workers call Medicaid recipients "red-carders."
In 99% of cases ER workers most certainly DO know a patient's insurance provider shortly after the patient is placed in a bed-if not before.They DO look at it and too often they often DO discriminate.If the nurse hasn't had time to look through the chart, someone involved in the patient's care has.The ER doc almost always looks through the chart before they meet the patient.In cases where a patient is rushed in literally fighting for their life it's true that we DO start treating them without knowing their insurance status,but it sure doesn't take the admission clerks long to find out,even if the patient is unconscious.
The thing is,plenty of true disabilities are NOT immediately visible.Someone who LOOKS able-bodied may well have a legitimate reason to use Medicaid.Sometimes people are on Medicaid for reasons other than disability and poverty,such as being a child in foster care in Missouri. Not everyone who looks like they have money in the bank really does.A person on disability may have a valid reason to be collecting it and still use their income inappropriately.If they spend their whole paycheck on a new iPhone, that was real dumb, but it's THEIR money and they may still be disabled. Or maybe they didn't obtain the iPhone or Coach bag in a legal way, but we don't know that,and it's not our job to make guesses about it.
In truth it's a VERY small percentage of Medicaid recipients who are carrying new iPhones and expensive handbags when they come to the ER or clinic.But the few who do provide a very lame yet very frequent excuse for people who are healthcare workers but shouldn't be to discriminate against and otherwise show hostility to society's most vulnerable people.
Very good comments from most. One thing neglected here, as in many similar conversations, is that some people like to judge others for no other reason than to feel better about themselves. And of those, some are simply addicted to 'kicking others when they are down'. Why? Because they look so much 'better' in comparison.
Decubitus ulcers, even just photos of them, are gaggers for me. I was in the health care industry for many years while improved methods of wound dressings were being developed. Ewwwww!
For some reason the decubitus ulcers never really bothered me after the first few. I used to have to clean them out and watch the Doc debride them before dressing them back up. I didn't care for the smell though. We used to have this 35 year old diabetic come into our clinic every week for ulcer care on the bottom of his foot. Then suddenly stopped coming in. A few weeks later, I had to go to the morgue; while I was there, I seen a wrapped up leg. It had his name on it. Now I know why he stopped coming to the clinic. That was sad. The ulcer was starting to heal when I last seen him, I never knew what went wrong.
I've seen some pretty disgusting things in my nursing career, but taking the bandage off a bed sore and finding maggots is probably the worst. The hospital where I worked got lots of overdose patients because we had a psych unit on the premises - you haven't lived until you've cleaned up the liquid charcoal feces from the wall of the room following the patient's explosive diarrhea.
Actually, finding maggots would be helpful to the patient because they can clean the dead and diseased tissue from a wound better than any human and they don't eat live skin, only the dead, infected tissues.
I realize the maggots help in cleaning away the dead tissue, but removing a dressing on the back of someone's head, not knowing what I would find, and then seeing maggots fall out (not to mention the most horrendous smell) is nightmare-inducing. This happened to me once during my nursing career in the ICU and the room smelled awful for 2 days. We had to shut the room down and wait for the smell to clear before another patient could be placed there. Extremely sad, and disturbing.
and in the icu there was a patient with maggots in his nose. don't think there was any dead tissue up there.
a small jar of ether did the trick though.
so keep flys out of the icu!! or you will have them laying eggs in the nasal passages of some of your less aware patients.
honest.
God bless the nurses and doctors for putting up with it.
Different side of things, I'm in veterinary med and often am arm deep in the tail end of cattle. Tail swishing means you get feces, blood, amniotic fluid in your face all the time. This doesnt bother me one bit, but if I have to grab a fresh dog pile with a plastic baggie I have to steel myself.
I feel really bad now, I just came from the dentist and when they put that gook in my mouth to get an impression I could not do it I gagged and drooled and literaly grabbed the dental assistance's wrist and pulled the whole mess out after a while I finallly managed to keep it in my mouth and drooooollled uncontrollably . I am so ashamed of myself I do not want to go back ,but I have to again in two weeks, and to think I probably made every one including other patients sick that day.
My father had the same problem when getting fitted for dentures. Don't feel bad. If you have the time, try hypnosis. It worked for him.
OMG ... I do the exact same thing ... so embarrassing ... I am getting ill just thinking about this!
I used to have to endure that pretty often when I had braces... and they'd do both pallates at once (upper and lower), so I really had to fight the gag reflex. Felt like I was going to choke on my own tongue at times...
don't feel bad! Your dentist may have t prescribe something to supress the gag reflex. If he doesn't, take some dramamine (anti-travel-sickness) pills. It really works!
When you go back to the dentist, before he goes to put the ick in your mouth, grasp your left hand around your left thumb (make a fist with thumb inside) I read somewhere that doing that can curb the gag reflex and I have a lulu of one so when I went in for my bite-wings (that would gag a horse, I'm sure) I tried it and it really did help. It doesn't really help the drooling, but it couldn't hurt to try it to keep from hurling!!
Poor baby, maybe they can give you some nitrous oxide. Nothing bothers you on that stuff.
psp don't worry about it!!
believe me, they have seen worse!
so just make a joke out of it, ONCE!
and then move on. we are all human, at least most of us are!
the others, who aren't, well, they don't count. or matter.
I practiced nursing for 21 years & mostly emergency medicine & the thing that groses me out isputting in or taking out contact lenses....... Go Figure
For many years as a young girl I was going to become a nurse. Then I realized I can't do vomit at all, and went a different path. I tell people I'm a "social upchucker"...if someone starts, I'll gladly join in. My husband can't do blood...his or anyone else's, but doesn't care about vomit. We made a great team when it came to our kids! I cared for my Mom for a while and had to clean up the projectile diarrhea once..that was a tough one..had to put cotton balls up my nose and breathe through my mouth. Hats off to all you nurses out there for doing what you do!!
lifelongpackerfanandstockholder - me and my hubby are just like you... I take care of the blood & he takes care of the vomit... (even typing the word makes me gag a little). He actually freaks out so bad at the sight of blood on the kids that it made my son pass-out at the sight of his own blood. When mom handles the situation, he's fine..... I can't handle anything dental ~ loose tooth, mouth pain anything... makes me so squeamish!!!
On another note.... sorry to hear your a life long Packers fan.... I am a lifelong VIKINGS fan... hope to make grilled cheese out of your team on Sunday.... No hard feelings. Just a little border battle fun. :)
I think it's the smell that triggers a gag for me... When I was in first grade or so, the girl next to me threw up all over her desk. I was okay until I got a whiff of that and started to heave. Same when my mom and I were caring for my grandmother in her later years... she had terrible diarrhea (occasionally projectile), and we'd have to lift her to the other side of the bed, clean her off, strip the bed, etc... if I had to clean up the poo, I was in bad shape, gagging all the way down the hall to the laundry room.
"On another note.... sorry to hear your a life long Packers fan.... I am a lifelong VIKINGS fan... hope to make grilled cheese out of your team on Sunday.... "
Yeah-right, oops. The Viks got slam-danced by my Monsters last week & 2 of our best players were injured! I don't think Green Bay has much 2 worry about.
"No hard feelings. Just a little border battle fun. :)"
Yep! ;-)
(Grilled cheese-that's funny.)
it isn't just the nurses.
but the respiratory people, the nurses aides, the interns and residents. the physical therapists, et al.
even some of the 'gray ladies' or volunteers. (what are they called these days??)
in my 25-30 year career i remember my 5 worst patients! and my 5 most favorite patients!!! the rest are just a warm blur.
Not a nurse, but I had to deal with a vomiting incident my freshman year of college. I was taking my final for Psychology class, and had to use the bathroom. My professor let me, so I ran to the nearest one -- and the minute I began doing my business, I heard the person in the stall next to me vomiting, very loudly. Despite a normally strong stomach, it was in knots due to the fact it was Finals Week. I had to run out of there before I vomited myself. I'm not sure why that bothered me as I have seen people vomit in front of me and that doesn't phase me often.
When I started my nursing career I worked nights, as many new grads did. My first assignment was to a medical floor and we did a lot of respiratory (COPD) infections. Every morning these folks would wake up and start this horrendous coughing/chocking as they cleared their lungs from all the crud they accumulated during the night. Just hearing it made me nauseous and I usually ended up in the bathroom, dry heaving, until I could control it enough to finish my shift. I finally put in enough time to transfer and I got out of that area of nursing. In 30+ years of hospital nursing, that is the only thing that has ever bothered me....
Never once in my life, prior to nursing school, did any body secretions make me ill. Throw it at me, I can take it. Had an instructor describe, in vivid detail, watching someone brush their teeth. To this day, I have to close my own eyes when I brush my own teeth, and then rinse out the sink. Send me in to delouse someone... or to clean a gangrenous wound... no problem. But please... do not ask me to describe what is in the emesis basin after they bush their teeth... because I am not looking.
Think about what's jammed up inside your dog's teeth. Makes me think twice about letting 'em lick my face with that nasty tongue.
Ummmmmmmmmmm, too much information here. The subject is better left behind closed doors in my opinion. I will never feel the same about doctors and nurses again. Why would nurses even discuss this in a public format. Disgusting. I only made it through the first two comments.
It is termed 'gallows humor',dear. When one see decubiti (bed sores) on a feeble elderly pt. due to neglect, a 6-yr-old girl infected with syphillis, an 18 yr. old giving birth to her third child-we in health care resort to humor that would horrify those not in the profession.It serves as a 'safety valve' to help us maintain a modicum of sanity.If you can do a better job Mother Teresa,be my guest.
Then go obsessively wash your hands or something. I have no problem with people's diarrhea, puke, bleeding, hocking up loogies, or any kind of surgical wound, and I am not a medical professional at all. Having participated in the raising of two children with my wife, and watched my mother descend into the dementia hell of Alzheimer's, I have seen it all, and while I may make a retching noise now and again, I don't faint, or vomit in response. I clean it up, and go back to my business. I have cleaned post-surgery packed wounds and re-dressed them with no problem. There is nothing inherently disgusting in human bodily functions unless you make it so, or the person exuding the fluids or baring their ulcers, etc. is doing so deliberately to gross people out. Yes, I have seen that, too. Try going to a nursing home some day, if you really want to see the full spectrum of it. God bless those who clean this stuff up every day, and for peanuts.
You gotta admit though, if you have the stomach for it, some of the comments in this thread are hilarious! Needed a good laugh today before I had a meltdown on someone. Thanks everyone for the needed laughs!
Wow, how did you ever handle being a mom? I remember holding my son on my lap while they put stitches in the back of his head....I was only a nose away from the wound and all I could think about was his pain.
Mom: you're correct, it's WTMI for most non-practitioners. But, when line-animals (front line response) are asked about their first's, invariably we speak of the fluid/excretion that we've been "baptized" in. Bodily fluids are a fact of life in health care, and nothing will ever change that fact. We don't speak of these out of malice, nor to disparage the patients in whose we care we are entrusted. Look again at most of the comments in these threads: the common denominator is that we're riffing on ourselves. I'd rather allow myself to be the brunt of a good laugh for my co-workers. Sometimes, it's our way of compensating for the horrors/terrors that we unfortunately deal with.
There are some firsts that you Really don't want to ask any ER Dr/RN/Med about. If you're not happy with us now....
YOU went through a labor and delivery?! And you LIVED?!
Mom-1160381 your comment is innane because it is silly to get mad at people about the kind of work that they are fated to do.
Just closed your eyes, hold your nose and dive in, it's not that bad..............
Honestly, being a doctor or nurse, no thanks.
Nope, it's never that easy. Even if I try to block my nose off, some of the smell still gets in...
God bless these people that have to deal with bodily fluids and functions day in and day out... I never could!
Definitely dentures! as a student nurse in the "real day" of nursing, I had to clean dentures and then put them back in the mouth. and also feeding patients with dentures- especially custard! YUCK. Taught me take care of your teeth!
Oh my goodness! This is SO true of nurses! I've been a nurse for over a decade, and it's true, we all have our ONE THING.
For me, it's trach phlegm. I can handle truly everything else. I always tell people that I am glad the first trach I ever cleaned and suctioned was on a guy in a coma, because I was gagging the whole time. Give me blood, stool, draining wounds, vomit, whatever, just no phlegm please.
sanityplease, just stand to the side, up near the head.
it is safe there!!