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 don't know how I'd cope in a really "dirty" job. I've only ever worked in shops or office jobs. Had to help clean a supermarket out after the nearby river burst its banks, that was fun (read: very stinky, dirty & exhausting). I've got very hardened to people's financial idiocy & its inevitable consequences over the years, having worked in a specific area of financial services (mortgages). Some people were very nice & we all felt very sorry for them; some had left their houses in an unbelievably foul state, clearly having deliberately trashed them, a few attacked the bailiffs & many were abusive to us... we were privately rather less sympathetic to them, although still just as professional.

Our back soil pipe overflowed once. Turned out the previous tenant had somehow poured tarmac down a pipe into the drain, partly blocking it, when they resurfaced the yard. Eventually the entire drain backed up. When the letting agent got a drain guy to come out, it was pushing the manhole cover up & off. DH ran inside & was very very sick... I just stood there & asked him how long it would take to fill up like that. Apparently several years - we'd been there less than a year, so there was no way they could pin it on us. (They didn't!)

I don't like slime though. Or saliva. Sharing cutlery is weird & disturbing.

I always think this. My friend and I are in our early 20s and graduated last year. I work on finance, she is an ICU nurse. She has literally seen people pass away as she provides end of life care. She even worked in the COVID ward this year. I just don’t know how she does it, she’s very resilient and can handle very difficult situations.

Stomach of steel.....until I cleaned the shower drain of my guest’s very long, black, wet hair blob

Reading these posts maybe my daughter is less serial killer and more likely a competent nurse in the making she was the only girl in class to agree to slicing an eyeball for an examination and to blow a pipe into a lung to show the workings of the lung rising and falling. I’m now thinking should she explore more options, her thoughts are nurse or doctor, there really isn’t much information out there for other potential medical or research roles.

The vets posts are funny 😂

I recently sent off my ancestry dna sample. You have to spit a lot into a tube, i felt a bit sorry for the people dealing with them!

I really struggled with poo/smells at first when I worked as a carer but after that it kind of stopped bothering me. My colleague couldn't cope with vomit, whereas that doesn't bother me
Huge emergencies absolutely fine. Someone stopped breathing when I was out shopping and I did CPR and defib, there was every body fluid possible everywhere and I didn't notice anything until afterwards then the nice staff got me a Starbucks
It's so strange, dealt with an eye injury too and everyone was "how are you so calm?!"
Just don't show me a mouse or I'll run

I worked in theatres for years. The hospital was a major teaching hospital so we got all the major trauma for the region. To be honest seeing horrific injuries didn't affect me at the time because there was so much to think about and do. Whilst you're aware there is a person under the surgical drapes, you're dealing with their injury, rather than them if that makes sense. Before they were anaesthetised and as soon as the surgery was completed, they immediately became a person again and whilst I can still recall some particularly 'gory' events that happened many years ago, it's the patients' names and wondering what happened to them afterwards that sticks in my mind.

@ComeOnGordon

I had a job where I spent a lot of time dealing with phlegm. Honestly best job I’ve ever had and I miss it so much

Omg I’m nearly retching reading the word ‘phlegm’ absolutely good on you for having a strong stomach but I’d sooner walk over hit coals

@Babdoc

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...

OMG having a giggle and a bowk here at the same time after reading this

I work on my computer all day, and couldn't imagine dealing with people's body parts inside or outside their body for work. Or worse still bodily fluids, the thought makes me feel a bit queasy.

My cousin is a colorectal
Surgeon and operates on people's bottoms 😷
However does a lot of work with patients with bowel cancer
I'm very proud of him although it must be gross x

My DH used to be a police officer on the Major Crime Unit and dealt with some pretty horrific and gory murder cases. I don't know how he did it and he never showed any feelings at home. After he had left the MCU he went to work in another area of policing where he attended the drowning of a young child (accidentally) in a pool. He came home and broke his heart. Our DS was 2 at the time.

I've never been so angry with my brother as when he wouldn't let me deal with his sebaceous cyst. Furious. I watched from across the room and it was nearly as good as doing it myself

I'm an anaesthetist. Can stick needles and tubes in many different places, deal with plenty of bodily fluids, look after people as they die, fine. The only time I've ever got sick at work was when I was in early pregnancy and we had a case of necrotising fasciitis. I had to swap to a different theatre or the smell would have made me vomit. Not mad keen on eye surgery but I just try not to look too closely!

Can't touch raw meat at home. My husband thinks this is ridiculous.

I'm an ex nurse, gore, vomit etc never bothered me at the time.

I can even now quite happily watch gory tv shows and films while eating my dinner, just doesn't phase me.

Even the ones where you're watching actual surgeries take place etc.

But I am a bit weird about eyes! I don't really like touching or faffing with them. Most hcps have an area they're not a huge fan of so there can be some "trading" going on, eg I'll do the sputum collections if you'll help that patients with the eye infection.

Doesn't make me nauseous more shivery/itchy like I have to shake it off.

When I worked in hospitality jobs before the smoking ban, emptying and washing ashtrays turned my stomach even the thought now does. It was the smell more than anything.

I wanted to watch my own c section they wouldn't let me though. I did watch my own colonoscopy and gastroscopy though.

I'm a bugger to stick as I've shitty veins! I have on occasion offered to and on a very few occasions been allowed to stick myself when they couldn't get me as I know which veins and which angles are best.

Pisses me off when hcps assume when I'm telling them of the issues that I'm just a needle wimp! I'm not I just have shitty veins that are a bastard to get and when you do often clot or close down.

Think it's genetic as my sister and my dad are the same.

Dd is super easy to get but she drew the line at me having a go! She's been in hospital a few times and when they've realised how easy she is stuck her with the learners. Mostly she doesn't mind but at times she just wasn't up to being a test dummy and I've had to step in and advocate.

My mum is the complete opposite! She has vasovagal syncope. She faints at the mere sight of a skint knee! She also struggles with people vomiting as she tends to start vomiting herself or again faints.

I have ocd though and since it's been really bad I've struggled with all sorts of these things in real life.

Not blood that's never been a problem but faeces, urine and sometimes vomit I now struggle with.

My brothers a police officer and has dealt with plenty of ods, rta's, suicides etc especially as he's now mainly dealing with drugs offences. He's generally unflappable but found dealing with children severely injured or killed in rta's the hardest, not really from a gore perspective more the emotional side.

I'm a vegetarian but handling meat doesn't bother me

My sister the meat eater wears latex gloves to make dinner

@Iheardarumour

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.

We get called unfortunately a lot to these, traumatic injury's are horrific, some you never forget.

Student nurse here. I can cope with most things but emptying a catheter bag takes all my resolve. There's something about the smell of stagnant urine!

I have a friend who is a fireman.

He once told me about how he removed three dead children from a house fire. How he handed them to the paramedic, knowing they were dead, and went right back in again.

I don’t understand how he’s functioning. That would have absolutely broken me.

@TableFlowerss I’ve worked my whole adult life in hospitals so I’ve got pretty hardened to a lot of bodily fluids but when my kids were little I could have puked myself if I had to clean up their sick 🤢🤢 thankfully my ex had a stronger stomach for it.

There was a funny story about a senior member of staff who had brand new students and she’d secretly in advance crushed up the inside of some green grapes in a sputum cup to look like phlegm and left it with a patient who was in on the joke. When she got to him she told the students that the best way to see if someone had an infection was to taste the phlegm and then proceeded to get a spoon and spoon out the “sputum” 😂😂😂😂 the students were horrified and she was howling laughing

I do love a good ulcer. Fascinating to watch how the layers heal.

But mouldy squelchy potatoes - shudder.

ComeOnGordon, that brought back memories of a surgical colleague with a great sense of humour. One April Fool’s Day he had a group of medical students in his colorectal clinic.
He’d secreted a smear of Marmite on his (clean) glove and told the students that tasting the patient’s faeces aided in diagnosis. He offered it round, then when they all refused, licked it up himself to their looks of utter horror!

@Babdoc ha ha that’s an equally great trick to play on students

I’m so squeamish. I can do mild sporn but thats it. Blood or anything else makes me heave. My gran was a nurse for geriatric patients so saw a lot of decay and death but she was a strong person and handled it fine. I can’t cope with vomit at all, it makes me sick, when DH had been discharged from hospital he vomited several times in the kitchen sink (nearest place) but the plug was in so I had to make him take it out and run water before I could even attempt to clean up. Poor soul kept apologising but he was sick and at least it wasn’t the floor.

[quote ComeOnGordon]@TableFlowerss I’ve worked my whole adult life in hospitals so I’ve got pretty hardened to a lot of bodily fluids but when my kids were little I could have puked myself if I had to clean up their sick 🤢🤢 thankfully my ex had a stronger stomach for it.

There was a funny story about a senior member of staff who had brand new students and she’d secretly in advance crushed up the inside of some green grapes in a sputum cup to look like phlegm and left it with a patient who was in on the joke. When she got to him she told the students that the best way to see if someone had an infection was to taste the phlegm and then proceeded to get a spoon and spoon out the “sputum” 😂😂😂😂 the students were horrified and she was howling laughing[/quote]
Omg I’d have died off if I’d witnessed that!!! 😳😂 bet the students were about to resign from the course 😂

Brought up on a farm and have seen plenty of blood from animals and some from myself , not particularly phased by it