Had to drain a perianal abscess. Standard stuff in a government hospital, but in private practice, it's a rarity. I had forgotten how ABSOLUTELY awful they are.Imagine the smell of a rotten goose egg, mixed with 2 day old vomit, mixed with baby poo... That's about the introduction.
AND I kept a straight face and held down the gag reflex. I am a GOD.
8 comments:
oh my god, you have to do those for PEOPLE?!?! i thought vets had it bad with expressing anal glands in dogs...i can't believe people have gross anal problems that need to be drained. ok, i can believe it, but at least i can tell the dog what a smelly little bastard he is in a nice voice and he'll still think i'm the most awesome person ever because he no longer has to scoot his butt on the floor.
that is truly gross... but I can bet that the person you helped out what extremely grateful. But still ugh.
I'm sure all the infection control malarky would have hissy fits if you hurl on your patient in a theatre. How'd you describe that on an IR1 incident form?
When I was typing this up for SA Doc - you should have seen the Google Images we considered using. THAT is gross.
I had to do TWO in one day when I did a preceptorship. One of them was absolutely huge. I'm glad I was just assisting, b/c everytime the doc would make a new cute, we'd get a gush of green cheesy stuff. I was throwing on gauze pads left & right. By the end of it we could see that the baseball sized abscess was actually the size of a dinner plate and took 22 packages of gauze to absorb drainage. I have no idea how this guy lived with it that long for it to get that bad.
~MvMedstudent
22 packets of gauze to stop the cheesy stuff? i'm regretting this decision to co-host a medical blog right now.
try being elbow deep into some old lady's gross buttock bedsore. I had elbow gloves on (those are the hardest things to come by in a government hospital) and had to scrape the dead tissue off her ilium. Without anaesthetic!!!!
Gross Gross Gross,
....BUT
I just had one removed. Being a young healthy male it was one of the most embarrASSing episides in my life. All the nurses were young and cute and the surgeon was my age. I begged the Dr to just leave a lance on the table and let me do it myself.
I just kept telling myself that they are pros and probably seen worse. Glad I did not have internet access at the hospital, as I have discovered the Dr's are human too thus not immune to smell.
Oh and the wound care with the nurses was worse. I had a really hot slavic nurse.
So the patient does not enjoy the experience that much either. I do guarentee that are damm thankful as that whole process really hurt.
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