People with gory jobs...how, just how, do you do it?!

[lookatgiraffenow]

Having a GP appointment this week, it hit me that I could NEVER be a phlebotomist or a surgeon or nurse or anything medical-related...HOW do you stomach it?? My job means I have to deal with extremely unpalatable things reasonably often but nothing too blood and gutsy.
I have a surgeon friend and my brain is boggled that she can operate on someone. Like, actually cut someone open and have a rummage around! Without passing out, puking or having shaky hands!
I'm in awe, actually.

I could cut people up and rummage but could never be a dentist. Or kill animals in an abbatoir.

Cellular pathology worker here, in a large teaching hospital Trust, so we see (and routinely have to carve up) the whole spectrum of human anatomy, from tiny GI biopsies right up to whole organs or limbs. It has to be said that repeated exposure does desensitise you somewhat to the 'ick' aspect of it, and most of us mentally divvy up the workload into 'routine' or else 'fascinating' (some of the unusual presentations) as opposed to 'nauseating'. I think however that you natively just need a strong stomach before you can set about dealing with some of what we see; I have spoken with plenty of folks, including some medical/allied healthcare professionals, who have said that even they simply couldn't countenance the idea of some facets of pathology.

Everyone's got different triggers. I can do blood, surgery, injections, death, poo and pus but DONT ask me to deal with a child's candlesticks and i will run from human vomit (norovirus is my worst nightmare)

Nurse here...I struggle with phlegm...however I can disconnect somewhat in order to help the person and do inner retching!
Also some wounds and feet I ain't kern on.

Keen.....also cysts n pus

I feel the same way OP. I have often thought the same thing - I could never be a surgeon as I couldn't back the blood and cutting people up!

I deal with animal blood, poo, pee, vomit, saliva, snot, pus, scabby rashes etc. every day. I perform surgery most days and I love it, find it all endlessly fascinating. Human poo, vomit, snot, scabby bits and innards though... hell no 🤢 I don't know how human doctors, nurses, dentists etc. do it. Kids with snotty noses also make my stomach turn.

I work on London's tube network and I was briefly involved in a "one under" recently (person under train). All I did was clear the platforms, close the station and turn the traction current off. The real heroes are the Incident Response Manager, the Duty Reliability manager for trains and the Emergency Response Unit. They deal with one-unders too often unfortunately,
and have seen it all. They were very insistent I leave the track and platforms and wait by the station gate to redirect delayed passengers. I didn't see anything traumatic. They found the body, transferred it to a body-bag, had it ready for the coroner to pick up, they cleaned the track, got the train to the next station and took it out of service, and we reopened the station. All done with no panic, no drama, and with dignity for the deceased. I could never, ever, do what they do, week in, week out.

I was ok with everything after the first week or two of Preliminary Training School, but sputum was defo not my first choice, and I didn’t like Eye Theatre or toenail removals. Not much of a vomiter, me.

Humans are very adaptable. You just get used to whatever is normal in your particular working environment.
As an anaethetist for 36 years, I had my fair share of gore. Including a head injured road casualty where bits of his brain were dropping onto my shoes as I intubated him. And messy operations where I’ve been spattered in blood along with the theatre wall. My record was 23 pints of blood for one procedure, but a colleague beat that with 30.
I’ve been hit with every bodily fluid at some point. Including one 80 year old with a bladder obstruction who got so excited at me catheterising him, he ejaculated.
Rectal abscesses are a particularly pungent mixed aroma of faeces and pus. Not recommended for incision and drainage during a heatwave in a theatre with no air conditioning...

Sputum is an occupational hazard when you work in patients’ airways. The green, infected and smelly variety is unpleasant but pales into insignificance alongside the halitosis of a dental phobic who has finally presented for a dental clearance after decades of toothbrush avoidance and a septic mouth.
I could go on but it’s supper time...

@PurBal I agree! DH is a funeral director and is the most caring and compassionate person I know.

He also has a stomach of pure steel, no smell or bodily fluid bothers him at all.

But for some reason he cannot deal with clearing up cat sick, it gives him the genuine boak.

I turn off my feelings and deal with them later.

I’m a clinical scientist and work in cath labs (mostly keyhole surgery for cardiac problems) and outpatients clinic, I used to work in pathology and had a brief stint in the mortuary for work experience. I see a lot of dreadful looking fungal, scaly necrotic legs and feet, infected wounds, blood (lots and lots of blood), urine, some vomit, luckily no faecal matter yet (that’s my trigger tbh, along with bad smells), corpses.

I find a lot of it very interesting, but smells really set me off, so messing around with and near smelly fungal/diabetic feet makes me feel sick, I have to just focus on what I’m doing and try not to heave as it’s not professional!

Dead bodies I find very interesting, so love a trip to the mortuary to switch off an ICD, find infections interesting too (like watching dr pimple popper), and surgery. Blood does not bother me at all, I love mopping it off the floor and wiping it off the equipment as I find it very satisfying. I draw the line at faecal matter, but considering how much dog crap I pick up and litter trays I clean out at home I reckon I could get used to that too. Saying that we we use diathermy a lot, which cauterises (burns) the flesh as it cuts through and the smell of burning human flesh makes me feel sick, I’ve been doing this for three years and I’m still not used to that yet.

I'm currently training as an operating department practitioner. We drained a cheesy abscess today and it was funny how all the staff stood and watched - I think it's definitely a special breed of human that likes to watch that sort of thing.

Much like a PP I'm a vet and can whip your dog's spleen out or stitch your cat's leg back on but do NOT ask me to do people stuff. I will boke. Not sure I could even put a plaster on someone else's cut 🤮

I think most people could get used to a certain amount of gore, although some just can't cope at all and have a physiological response. I have a fairly strong stomach and was exposed to a moderate amount of gore/death as a HCA. There's a really interesting YouTube channel about a Dutch guy who cleans up extreme sites. From hoarders who have been dead in the height of summer for weeks, to giant freezers full of chicken where the power has gone out and it has started to rot. I find it fascinating and he deserves a medal.

I assist humans in emerging from other humans, blood, poo, liquor (chorioamnionitis, once smelled never forgotten) tearing, stitching, vomit etc - not a bother.

But don’t pass me your plate with bean juice left on it after you’ve eaten 🤢🤢

When I worked in minor theatre, my favourite operation was removal of toenail. So satisfying.

I still remember my very first day in the hospital as a student nurse. I was taken to see a patient with a pressure sore so bad you could see their vertebrae. It was truly a sight to see, and clearly the nurses were disappointed that I was fascinated and not fainting I've seen many a gross thing and been fine with it all.

But when the kid's pet fish died in their tank a couple of years ago, it took all my nerve not to vomit. Dear God dead fish creep me out.

I can't even have a dog for fear of picking up poo and I faint at the sight of my own blood! Thank goodness for all you lot.

I'm another nurse that hates phlegm. Any other bodily fluid, fine, but phlegm and sputum turn my stomach. I once vomited into a nearby clinical waste bin while pregnant with ds and suctioning copious amounts of thick sputum from an unconscious patient but I can normally just about suppress it

I’m a dentist and can stomach everything apart from when patients remove their dentures. Ok if they are spotless but any food or goo or stringy, frothy saliva and I heave ( behind my mask and visa).
Oh and I have one patient who is ASD and has obsessive diet. He eats raw onions, tomatoes and peas for breakfast. I have told my breath for his visits, although I have FFP3 mask now which will come in handy.
I am a bit weird about surgery on my own body. I had a few laparoscopies for Endo and the consultant wanted to talk me through the video they had recorded of the procedure. Looking at your own insides is just wrong.

I’m a midwife and have to say I was worried about this when I started. I consider myself squeamish and I’m not good with the sight of blood and don’t like needles. I still can’t look in DD’s mouth when she has a loose tooth.

But when I’m at work it’s different. I have to be professional, I have a job to do. I can take blood, cannulate, suture perineums, do episiotomies, manage huge emergency haemorrhage situations without feeling in the slightest bit squeamish.

Just to add we love to drain a good abscess. I am a big fan of sporn, very much a guilty pleasure when I discovered YouTube. The dental nurses usually fight to assist when a big abscess comes in.

I have been a nurse and funeral director I can tell you none of us are angels just people doing a job.

What I couldn't do is an answering phones and taking done things job, I really struggled when I was a funeral director and had the phones especially with the middle of the night calls...

Or an editor or anything where I had to cross reference numbers or accounting. Death and blood doesn't bother me but having to add up a balance sheet 😱😱😱 although I look at them all the time in my job but actually having to do them accurately!!