What are the TOP 4 GROSSEST Sights/Smells for a GI Doc? 

I am in the final year of my MD/PhD, and I think I found one smell that was worse than the 4 listed here in a GI surgery. One responsibility in my PhD was collecting colons from colectomies in the OR, bringing them to pathology, and making sure I could get a sample before the pathologists doused the sample in formalin rendering it useless for our experiments. One patient came in right after the holidays in January and told us they hadn't pooped for the past 3 weeks, but kept eating at the family parties. Turned out, their colon cancer had completely obstructed the bowel but they didn't want to ruin the family holiday season with the issue so they waited. Long story short, surgeons removed the largest colon I have ever seen in a human being, at least twice as large as the next biggest I've seen. The surgeons cauterized it closed on either end into a big long poop-sausage and left the patient with an ostomy. I brought this massive, incredibly heavy colon to pathology just holding it against my gown, because we had no container large enough for it. The poor pathology intern assigned to gross surgical specimen for the day had the horrendous responsibility of opening it up to accession the sample. When he cut into it, I nearly passed out. Just a deluge of bloody, partially digested food/poop chunky mix came pouring out into the sink. accompanied by a smell worse than anything I saw in my clinical years of medical school. This was pre-COVID so no masks on, and the look of horror on everyone's face in the room is something I will never forget. Immediately the intern began running water and washing down the mixture as quickly as possible, but it took a good long while for the smell to subside. I got my sample and returned it to my lab, and when I told my professor the story of how it happened, he threw up just from hearing it. I start a research elective on Monday to continue said project. The least I can do is make sure the research ends up published, and we learn something from this horror.

my GI said I did a good job with the prep and I've never been so proud.

I'm a nurse. Being a mom comes with waaaaay more gross stuff. Had to hold and soothe my infant while she vomited spaghetti in my hair. My patients usually don't do that. Patients also don't poop on the floor or hide cups full of milk for me to find days/weeks later.

A left behind, forgotten tampon. You have a disposable cup of water there to put it in the nano - second it's fished out: for yourself, the entire room and to minimise the patient's (profound) embarrassment.

I’m the GM of a restaurant, and I was the chef for many years. No matter how spotless you keep everything, food goes bad. And it can go bad really quickly. Some nasty smells there. I wound up developing a nose for it, I can smell something going bad through a practically air tight seal now. If something doesn’t pass my sniff test, into the garbage it goes.

I’d love to see you do a short explainer on illeostomies and colostomies, anatomy, differences, etc. I’ve had an illeostomy going on fourteen years now and I’ve had a few friends who’ve said you’re videos are very understandable/approachable and I’m sure a lot of people would love to have a short understandable video like the ones you do to help explain what is often an uncomfortable topic

I give medical workers so much credit for dealing with bodies, both human and non-human. I couldn't do it as a job. One summer, I volunteered at a marine mammal center where they take care of injured and sick marine mammals. The sea lions and elephant seals were really sick from red tide toxins so they vomited and had diarrhea. On top of that, many of the sea lions also had worms- worms that were 2 feet long! I had to hose down the enclosures full of vomit, feces, and worms. The smell of fish, vomit, and poop was pretty bad. Worst though, were the worms. I didn't eat spaghetti for many months, even looking at cooked spaghetti made me nauseous.

When I worked pathology, we'd keep an "ass cabinet" of foreign bodies removed from the colon.

I just finished my intern phase as an EMT. There was a patient with an open skin injury to his lower left leg that had been an ongoing issue. Well, his doctor was out of town so he couldn't get it looked at. Instead he went to a walk in (after a long time) and they called us. Yes the doc changed the bandages and all, but they called us because of maggots FALLING OUT OF HIS LEG. By the time we got there, I could see them wiggling out of the dressings onto our stretcher. Not very fun but this was my second day as an EMT so I know I'll see a lot more

Worst smell as a nurse was melena that had been in a patient for 2 weeks. I love your videos explaining different diagnoses/procedures/interventions, more please. Also that poor Jones family, worst year ever!

Being a dental hygienist for 30 years, and working in a periodontal office, the grossest thing in my job was picking food out of patients 5 and 6 mm gum pockets. I mean like a whole tuna sandwich, least it seemed like it. Also patients with gums that bleed so bad you literally can not see what you are doing, ya sorta feel your way around the teeth with your instruments and rinse and rinse and rinse. The blood never bothered me as much as food impacted in the periodontal pockets. So gross and yes lots of bad breath too.

I'm a vet pathologist, and one time we got a dog for a post mortem study that had been buried in the ground for a few days. The tutors/owners changed their mind and decided they wanted to go ahead with the post mortem study anyways. We don't usually accept animals in that state of decomposition, but I forget why we went on and did it. Well, the smell, the amount of larvae and insects that were already eating away the decomposed flesh, the juices... I cannot tell you. That smell stayed with me for at least a week. I bet the vets and people that work in forensics get used to it after a while.

As a person with Gastroparesis I have to say that GIs that work with us are a rare breed because I don't really have problems often now but before I got my diet right (knowing what was wrong) it was a rough life.

Had to pause the video. “Memory of a fart” 😂😂😂 I love the way one line can make me literally laugh out loud and smile so big my face hurts!!!

Bariatric Dietitian here - so happy that I can help patients without having to physically touch them. None of my job is gross. Most of the medical stuff is super fascinating.

On my last day of my last clinical in nursing school, I had a cirrhosis patient who was having melena (although is it still melena if is like...80% just straight up blood?). He was bleeding so much that we were cleaning 2-3 inch blood clots off of his feet because it had oozed all the way down to the foot of the bed. We paged GI, they never looked at the stool, and their fellow just said "well, usually GI bleeding doesn't come out of the rectum". Meanwhile dude's vitals are tanking, his h&h had dropped to near transfusion levels in a matter of hours and his butt just kept oozing the stankiest blood/feces discharge (so fun to clean up!) but...sure, gi bleeds don't happen from the rectum. Was gross and also infuriating and confusong

The grossest part of my job as a mortician is when preserving a body sometimes as pressure builds it pushes poop out and of course after sitting in the body for a while it doesn't smell all that pleasant on the way out...corpses in general don't smell great but when I tell friends about embalming the thing they are most freaked out about is that you kinda "pop" all of the organs to properly preserve the tissues

I’m a kayak guide and there are a few gross things about my job. I’ll list them in order from most gross to least: 1.) wet old food/trash left in the hatches of the kayak 2.) people vomiting from sea sickness (only in second cause it doesn’t happen too often that they actually puke, usually they just feel sick) 3.) dog poop on the beach 4.) dead animals on the beach (I don’t know why there are so many dead seagulls. Couldn’t tell ya)

One time in A&P class we got to go watch a human corpse get dissected. Mid way through the dissection, a girl who was standing near the torso of the corpse passed out. While she was falling, she faced planted the dead corpse. Not only did she pass out, but she also managed to slam her face into the dead body. It was definitely gross and MORTIFYING (lol) for the girl. It's one of those embarrassing moments that she probably hoped no one would ever remember.. but it's the best memory of that class!

I’m grateful there are doctors for these very important body areas. I will say that “Prep” is extremely difficult and I know I tried my best for mine but failed partly due to blockage, and I really find it to be extraordinarily repulsive but am more than willing to do my best. I needed surgery and worked through it.

I work in veterinary medicine, and I second melina,especially in relation to parvo, because that just adds this extra funk to the smell that YOU KNOW forever, what parvo smells like. Having to find all the pieces of a GI foreign body that's been in there a few days or longer...ugh- I've gagged a few times, and bad yeasty skin- I've had two patients in 10yrs(thankfully that's all) that had skin so bad it made my stomach turn enough I almost vomited!!! Yes people let it get THAT bad; Poor dogs.

thank you for making this!! i appreciate it!

Not work, but my mom had a temp. Ostomy bag, and it was usually totally cool. But she had a slow internal bleed that snuck up on her, and caused her to almost die in bed. In her flailing around the bag popped open. Ran up in the dark, felt wet, grabbed her, thought it was blood just... Poop everywhere. Sad ostomy poo ... Everywhere. EMTs had to wrap her in blankets to move her. She's ok now! But it took a while to get her room and bed back to ready for her.

Where I live, foodservice facilities are required by the county to have a solid waste interceptor installed at the garbage disposal to trap large amounts of grease and small bits of food after going through the disposer, if the establishment has a disposer. This is a box with a filter that sits between the disposer and the county waste line. It has to be emptied daily. When we got ours installed the guy told us weekly because we make very little waste. When we opened it to empty it the first time it smelled like vomit. It was thick with grease and tiny pieces of rotting food all sitting in water. The basket of waste had to be lifted from the box carefully so as not to splash sour water all over the floor. Meanwhile the basket weighs about 200 pounds and is perforated to let the water out and keep the trash and of course it went everywhere. Including on me. I smelled like vomit all the way home. Found out too late that there are services that come in and take care of this every night.

You have amazing videos and really cool skits 😄

Grossest thing I do at my job? Strub old" food" out of library books people have returned. Noodles, bananas, "pudding." Stickers are easy but there's usually more then a few. If you deface library books, you'll probably end up buying them.

Perfect video! I'm a 2nd year nursing student that works on a med-surge floor as a nursing aide. This weekend, I changed ~16 diapers chalk full of poop from a 400 lb patient (rare in Canada) on laxatives and a fleet treatment, but it doesn't affect me at all anymore. Only when they poop more WHILE you're changing them. That kinda gets to me. Seeing that starfish expand...

Comment section turns into bad smells I have encountered competition. 😅

Props to you for handling all the gross stuff you deal with Dr. Schmidt. As someone who is interested in becoming a GI, I guess I have that stuff to look forward to if I ever actually become a gastroenterologist lol. Thankfully, my current job in clinical research doesn't have anything like this. Just had an idea for a future video: What are the most interesting or unique cases you have worked on in your career thus far?

Hey a pathologist here! So that Prep you mentioned, helps us in lab too. The stench from cutting open a colon after colectomy cancels lunch,dinner or any food at all.

Former Vet Tech here: 1) Maggots. 🤢 Festering wounds on animals equals maggots. 2) Pyometra. Nothing like a big ol' sac filled to the brim with bloody pus. Get your pets spayed, folks! 3) Chronic yeast infections in ears. You can smell it when they walk in the door. 🤢

Once we had a poor man with many problems and who died within a few days. He was admitted under GI. He was a HUGE nursing problem - about as hard as it gets. He was constantly leaking copious amounts of putrid, close-to- water consistency faecal matter. He had very limited positioning options (and couldn't move himself at all), was obese, HUGE scrotal hernia the size of a melon ... it was 1981 so I can't remember all the fine details of everything else he had (it was also a gen. med ward.) I was terrified his skin would break down from this so I had the bright idea to stick the biggest - available foley's urinary catheter up his butt, blew up the balloon & connected a urinary catheter drainage bag. Problem solved. We just changed the bags and his skin remained clean and dry and there was no odour - good for him, staff and visitors (he never had any 😔). HOWEVER, one night the night nurses turned him and disconnected the bag. We arrived on AM shift to find him lying full length up to his ears in liquid faeces. I have never forgotten it. Almost every nurse on the shift had to rally to fix this. Several got him onto a hoist, hosed him down over the bath and then ran one & immersed him for a proper bath whilst I and others dealt with the drips down the hall & the bed. When we lifted the sheet by the 4 corners off the bed, there was at least a full bucket (pail) of faecal liquid. Washing and drying EVERYTHING. And no "work" gloves back in 1981 - only sterile for dressings etc. Only "dainty fingers". Only thin plastic disposable aprons. Was ABSOLUTELY UNBELIEVABLY bad. I have NEVER forgotten this. Possibly the worst-ever memory. Along with laying out the corpse with 2 black gangrenous legs. I was 21 for both on my first graduate ward (floor in USA). Also full-blast ruptured oesophageal varices. Wash bowls to catch the blood. Our uniforms spattered & soaked with blood. All the patients in that section (btwn 4 and 16 beds) could see everything. Was exciting though ! 😳😱

'A memory of a fart' 🤣 brilliant description. 💨

21 year ago as a second year resident I had the worst case of GI bleed/ melena…I still have a memory of the smell…made me decide to do a specialty that equidistant from both orifices…I became a cardiologist Your videos are excellent…remind me of my training from 20+ years ago! Thanks so much for making me laugh!

Thank You for everything you do for your patients and the rest of us through education and comedy!!! People may make jokes, but your particular specialty is soooo very important!!! I’m so very thankful for my GI Dr! Several year ago I was in the hospital for an asthma attack and choked trying to swallow a large decongestant pill. I can’t begin to describe the unbelievable PAIN and the CRAZY amount of mucus & extra saliva my body suddenly produced to move the pill naturally… The nurse who handed me the pill was zero help and just STOOD THERE YELLING AT ME “You’ve got to tell someone about this!” while I was on all fours on top of my bed CHOKING & trying to hack up this stupid pill and all that extra mucus while saliva was POURING out of my mouth. Funny, I thought that was her job in that moment! 🥵 Enter my new favorite doctor!!! My GI Dr is an angel! Many tests and a few scopes later, I was diagnosed with Barrette’s Esophagus, Esophageal Strictures, Hiatal Hernia, GERD, IBS, and GI polyps… I was only 40. Yes, I knew about the acid & IBS years before, but had no idea about the rest… or the consequences. Sadly, my bio-father died a couple years ago of complications from Esophageal Cancer and sever alcoholism… & I thank my lucky stars every day that I already have an excellent GI because she’ll probably save my life a few more times!

I love the explanations doc 👍🏼

My mom had cancer when I was in high school and a symptom she had was internal bleeding, leading to her passing blood. That smell is ungodly. It sticks in your nose. The nurses told us there's nothing else quite like it and that thet usually knows somebody's bleeding internally the minute they smell that odor. It was intense. My mom is A-OK now.

When I was a teenage CNA- Helping a nurse suction and clean out a bed sore. Wound smells and ostomy bag smells haunt me still. And I only worked as a CNA for one summer.

You are a great actor and a fascinating lecturer. Do you lecture at unis? You should. I wish I had you to listen to when I was there

Oh, where do I start? I'm a former lifeguard, EMT, and CNA. I currently work in the ER as a registration associate. *Lifeguard:* People would leave used diapers on the pool deck or in the parking lot. *EMT:* Some people did not keep a clean home. I get it! I am mentally ill and have hoarder tendencies. My room is a mess. But I also know where that mess came from. It's a whole other thing when you're kneeling on a carpet to do CPR and when you finally get up, your knees are wet. Why? You're not sure but it smells like urine and death. *CNA:* Cleaning out a bedsore. Our resident was quadriplegic and disliked being bothered to be repositioned (and he was of sound mind and able to make his own decisions) so he developed a bedsore that got up to stage three and it was adjacent to his interglutal cleft so you can bet it stunk to high heaven. *ER Registration:* I have to go into patients rooms to get paperwork signed and every once in a while someone will vomit or have diarrhea while I'm in there. The good thing is I can say "I'll come back at another time." and leave it to the nurses.

You might want to talk about preps. It cost more but I used a low fiber diet for several days and Suprep. It was much better tolerated .

Wow...you're a really knowledgeable Fartologist.

Well I'm a paramedic. The most disgusting things are: 1. You come into a house and it smells rotten so u can even smell it through ffp2 masks 2. Psych patient who didnt move for days and had poo all over herself. 3. Chronic alcoholic. Had peed herself multiple times. The smell was so gut wrenching everyone put desinfectant in their mask to not smell it Abd to lighten the mood. Once had a pt that drank pepermint oil which was went for a bath

At my last job, the grossest thing I would occasionally be subjected to was coagulated photographic bleach. Over time it would dry out and form thick, flaky yellow crusts on anything it was on or around. Bonus for being horrendously corrosive. AGM batteries that had split from overpressure and failed atmospheric vents were a close second. It was rare that they ever leaked acid directly since the glass mats are slightly electrolyte starved, but it was still icky. Oh, and occasionally rodents and bugs inside of computers. A mouse nest might have been the absolute worst. I'd just as soon have trashed the machine as clean it.

When I wasn't a nurse I used to be very bad with smells but after being a nurse I have gotten used to many smells... but there are things you don't forget, like maelena... but also, a bad wound... I was working in plastics and this guy came in, he had some mental health issues and was trying to "treat his skin cancer with an alternative treatment", he had 2 crater-like wounds on his scalp on the right side just above his ear, and his ear was half off, it looked like his flesh had melted, and you could actually see the bone, and the smell? Ugh, I felt sorry for the poor patients that had to share his room... the other thing, while working in colorectal I had this poor lady with a bad bowel obstruction, ng tube in, aspirating the left-over stuff...oh gosh, it was one of those smells, mix of vomit, left over partially digested food, stomach acid and even poo... oh well...Now I work in a general surgical/vascular/Upper GI ward so I am much more used to stuff like that

Every gastroenterologist I know has a good sense of humor. Double for proctologists. Coping mechanism, I presume. As a clinical clerk, the rotations I found most gross were ophthalmology and dermatology. I couldn't help it, but examining nearly every patient made my skin itch or eyes water.

Love your videos. Can you explain the meaning of dysentery and tenesmus in those videos where you ask your family what they think a certain medical term means? :)

As an Internal Medicine Resident, the worst smells have to be 1. A grade 4 ulcer 2. Diabetic foot 3. Empiema 4. Melena

I'm a vet assistant, we had a client request an autopsy report on their recently deceased dog. The whole hospital smelled like death, grossest thing I've ever smelled.

The grossest part of my job is mental, watching parents use their kids as pawns in their divorce. (I work in education, kind of.) Fortunately it doesn't happen often.

I work at a theme park, not anywhere near a healthcare worker but just wanted to share, and the grossest part of my job is cleaning the cheese bucket. So at the theme park I work at we teach people about dutch history through presentations so everyday we make Gouda cheese in front of the audience in a old pot to show them how it would have been made around early 1800's and it just sits for hours. It doesn't sound that gross but everyone hates it with a burning passion, the smell makes you want to vomit. Not exaggerating in fact a few days ago the bag full of the cheese ripped and the clerk threw up from the smell.

Why am I proud that I always prep well? Who have I become? 😂😭😬

I have to say what grosses me out the most as a nurse is changing the dressings on deep tunneling grade 4 pressure sores. Grade 4 means you can see underlying structures and omg, bone and tendon should not be exposed to the air. Especially wounds that are months and months old and often infected. But luckily in my current job it is very rare I'll see that now. What I do see is terrible self neglect. So I think the grossest thing Ive seen was a womans hair being entirely matted into one solid matt, but also with lots and lots of headlice. You couldnt even wash her hair properly, let alone get anywhere near using a comb. And her head was crawling. Okay my third and final is putting sputum and stool samples into the correct pots to send off to microbiology. I don't mind cleaning people up, cleaning items up, disposing of bodily fluids etc, and I'm totally fine with decanting urine into several bottles. But the sputum and stool samples. Urgh. It's the scooping that really gets me.

I work in IT creating beautiful and intuitive user interfaces. The grossest part of my job is horizontal scroll tables. Most of my projects are replacing work flows based on excel documents so veteran users are used to mining huge data sets for what they need. We try our best to divvy up what information is ACTUALLY needed for which workflow and which can be left out or kept inside the record. There's many reasons for this, load time and lessening information overload are two big ones. But it's also important for new users. Training and adaptation goes smoother and faster with more intuitive and concise design. That saves the company money and saves the team a lot of hassle.

I work in property management…. The way people keep there homes is disgusting. Getting Thrashed apartments or hoarders can be pretty hard when turning apartments.

Fluoroscopy technologists here...Bad prep contrast enema and stoma, especially when contrast poop water spews out of the stoma!!

My family owns a dog bording facility, you'd be surprised what I've seen come out of dogs in my 15 yrs of life. The smells, oh boy. Sometimes I don't even know which end the stuff came out of. Oh! I found a lego persons head in dog poop and crayons! Yes, the crayons had kinda melted and colored the poop! Poop is also a very common topic at our dinner table.

"Memory of a Fart" My new Ska band name

Not work-related, but several years ago, I had to have two root canals. If you're grossed out, skip. The smell. Oh my gosh. I was horrified. I could smell it. I'm sure they could (I had two abscesses). I apologized all over the place and either cried or was trying not to. Being low-income, with poor health insurance sucks. Bad. My endodontist was a gem. I'm so sad he's retired now. Don't know what I'll do if I ever need more of that kind of work done.

Saying “It’s like the memory of a fart” made me laugh so hard. Love the videos!

When I was working in restaurants as a cook, the grossest part was definitely having to help clean the dishes during/after service (imagine mountains of plates with leftover pieces of bones, napkins, and everything in between on them), 😅😅😅. Thankfully, I work in an office now and only have to deal with my own dishes, 🤣🤣🤣.

Physio in GI ward Coffee ground consistency vomit……… or even blood blobs in vomit is actually the worse on wards…… or even melena in a patient thats double incontinent, especially when they cannot feel they just went, sat in it for about an hour in a side room, one of us visits the patient, end up having to reschedule until nurses or whichever unlucky soul's job is to clean the patient and air out the room. Then we immediately drop what ever we are doing and do what physios do.

Nurse in a specialized dementia home. Poop blood n stuff dont really gross me out that much. Like i have patients casually fingerprint with all kinds of bodily fluids. Worst thing ever tho was when i has to declogg a toilet that was both filled with someones inpacted feces and banana peels. Also 2 pairs of glasses than werent the patients... Toilet had been out of it a while but apparently the patient just, pushed everything past the swans neck for a while before it got really bad... Another thing that grossed me out once was when a patient kept vomiting up bile, green stomach acid, it was so rancid and i had to both hold the patient up so she wouldnt fall off the bed and hold the bean puke thingy. I almost puked as well until a colleague walked in to check and i quickly switched places with her to puke in he hallway

Decubitus ulcers and necrotizing fasciitis/gas gangrene. Also the juicy mush vomitus on intubating an altered patient.

2 week decomposing dolphin carcass is the worst smell I ever had. Our team even have to dig it up from the ground before performing the necropsy. Other things like poops, pee, vomit, maggot, necrotic wound... is normal to me. I am a veterinarian.

The smell of E. Coli in the room of a patient with UTI…. Grosses me out every time and I’m a GI surgeon

When I was reviewing op notes for G.I., as a coder, it really made me angry when they had to deal with patients who didn’t prep adequately. One even refused to retake because she just thought the doctor should figure it out in spite of a colon full of poop balls. 😣😖

Yep, that melena or other stool for occult blood tests that you don't even need to put it on the card to tell it's blood. I've had ones that are gritty like coffee grinds, and one that literally looked like peanut butter and strawberry jam. Generally for lab techs the stuff that gets to people is sputums. Just something about the consistency and having to mix the specimen like you're scrambling eggs before you plate it for culture, but it's mucus/pleghm from someone's respiratory system. The occasional urine with so mucus that it's the consistency of jello or has large chunks of mucus that even the analyzer says 'nope' gets me, mostly because it catches me off-guard. Everyone's got a "thing" and we are usually able to trade off- kinda like trading smells.

Something about seeing NGTs being pulled makes me retch... but otherwise brains on boots, gangrene toes falling off when taking shoes off to assess pedal pulses on diabetic patients who are falling over repeatedly (twice! make partner do it now he seems to have better luck than me) and walking into a ward where you can smell the C.Diff makes me paranoid for the rest of shift.

OR nurse and it totally grosses me out how many people do not clean their belly buttons. Solid chunks come out, and I have to use forceps sometimes before prepping them… Gross

Now seems like a good time to ask…what made you chose to specialize in GI? Sorry if this was asked and answered already.

Food impaction. Great. Another thing for my list of anxiety triggers. Haha

i work in a coffee shop. you'd think toilets would be the worst, and they are pretty bad. But the worst thing i've ever dealt with at work was someone left a USED condom in a mug. I didn't realise that's what it was until i put my hand in and pulled it out. I threw out the mug and the condom and washed my hands raw.

Lol I work in the office (well, at least before pandemic). The grossest thing I had to experience is when someone is clipping their nails in their cubicle and I can hear it :/ not as gross what you describe, but it all depends on the context.

I'm just a retail worker, so other than the breakroom trash can overflowing, the worst thing that I have personally seen is backflow from a toilet (watery poop and tissue). However, my ex co-worker had to clean a stall after a mystery visitor passed some explosive diarrhea.

Great video! You mentioned meat stuck in the throat. It made me think...... What does the Dr think about the carnivore diet? Thank you.

I work pulm and critical care as a practioner and occasional lung abscess are detected on x-ray or looks like a mass or pnumonia so during Bronchoscopy advancing the scope commonly ruptures it and to prevent sepsis we pull out alot of green thick pus and that is just 😝

One time when I had a colonoscopy, I was given grief for supposed bad prep, although I had followed the instructions to the letter. (OK, I was eating solid food up to the last second before I was to cease and desist with it, but I was still following instructions!)

I’m a dog groomer and I’d have to say the grossest parts of the job is probably finding surprise fistulas on matted dogs. Usually it’s of the rectal/anal gland variety hidden under a big ol poopy butt mat, but while stinky and definitely gross there’s something much worse in my opinion. I’ve only seen it once, looked like some really crusty tear stains on a matted dog. Nope. It turned out to be a nasal fistula from an untreated abscess tooth that just, ate through the sinus cavity and right out the top of the dogs muzzle below the eye. (We sent the dog to the vet immediately but I think it had to be put down.)

Btw: I had one of these done before…. The dreaded walk of shame to the table after placing the robe on & seeing the nurses that you know , that THEY KNOWWWW that YOU KNOWWWW they are going to be looking NOT AT YOUR FACE in a few minutes to put it ‘NICELY’ !! And then after u wake up & OHHHHH MYYYY GOSH , the Dr wants to talk to u!!

Dog groomer... dealing with poop, pee, unwashed hair 3months fleas and ticks.. sometimes dogs sprayed diarrhea while use velocity dryer.. some of dogs hug and pee on me while dry, some of dogs poop or pee or both on my table too. Now i have too much health issue (had orthopaedic surgery 3 years in a row) so i'm going to school for change my career...

I have literally had to lift a sewer pump out of the drain. It had been broken for an hour or so so I was literally covered in shitty water as far as my elbows. At some point you kind of have to go in and not think about what you're doing and take a good shower afterwards.

So why did you choose GI, what do you like about it? :-) I wonder this about urologists as well...

Haha, my first major in college was Medical Technology. And then we took a field trip to the poop lab. I do not work in the medical field.

Luckily I don't have a stinky job, but I did read a story on Reddit about doctors who endured 'the swamps of Dagoba'. It is quite the story.

Could you make a video about what it takes to get accepted into a GI fellowship? I’ve heard it’s one of the most competitive fellowships.

I remember when I was a CNA, i had to change the gomco container from a patient who has bowel obs so bad the poop started to come out from the NGT.

I work as an EMT and I can deal with everything except for a transfer of a patient with a rectal tube. The smell makes me dry heave the entire transfer.

You may not see this but I'm sure you have heard of it but explosive Diarrhea is the hardest to clean up. As a HCP myself I see nasty tube feed poops all day. They call me specificly for code brown. Ah the joys of being a Mobility coach in the ICU.

I have consistent food impactions due to a rare disorder called eosinophilic esophagitis. I feel so bad now :/ I usually end up in the ER once a year for it. Lol cringing. My poor GI docs. Lol I thought brushing my teeth might help? Lol

EM resident here, I once spoke to an older GI attending who'd been doing it for 25 years or so and he told me the only food impactions he's ever taken out were different types of meat, most commonly steak. Has this been your experience as well??

This is why I picked pharmacy. Grossest thing I've seen is a severe skin and soft tissue infection on ID rounds. The less gross the better.

I work outpatient these days but had my start as a phlebotomist in a city hospital. C diff smell and flaking dried layers of excrement off the body to be able to get a vein stand out as gross to me. My first week I was collecting on someone whose bowels suddenly burst and they cut into his abdomen while I was in the room. I saw what goes on the inside on the outside. It was intense.

Probably the grossest for me is drawing blood from a PT in CDiff isolation...and with active movements. It's not the sight...but the smell that gets me.

Back when I worked as a nurse, one of the grossest things was digitally "scooping out" (sorry, I don't know the correct english term, I'm from Germany) poop from the rectum of a constipated old lady. She was very grateful though, it had been causing her a lot of discomfort. Also I completely agree with the melena...

I worked for Public Aid and as an interviewer for the US Census. Animal hoarders and hoarders with small children upset me. I hate lice, fleas, cockroaches, bedbugs, and I hate that people don't clean up after their animals and small children. Broken glass, piles of feces, etc. are not normal things to find in a living area. Tina

That's absolutely nothing, ask a general surgeon. Empyema, Infected diabetic foot, gangrenous bowels, Fournier's gangrene, fecal disimpaction procedures, colostomy enemas... The list goes on and on.

Medical Receptionist here: I am used to patients handing warm samples over to me. I ate lunch with an unlabelled warm jar of urine until we could find its owner. Sputum samples are what get me, I don't know why. Thanks for hacking that up to hand over❤️😂

For me the grossest smelling thing was taking care of a patient with cdiff and had a colostomy. Second grossest thing was when I worked as an aide while in nursing school and a patient vomited stool. I was in with the nurse and said “what’s this shit?” To which she replied “Exactly.”

I am actually in one of the cleanest specialities ( ophthalmology) in medicine ... that was one of the reasons I choose it ..we don't get those grosse out moments, except perhaps for few occasions like blepharitis cases ( keep in mind they get magnified by the slit lamp )