Why I didn't become a surgeon

[George K]

[Mik]

Good reason.

[Doctor Phibes]

It never bothered me that much, it was the vomit that used to get to me.

[Axtremus]

Does the anesthesiologist not work in the same room (same breathing space) as the surgeon?

[George K]

@Axtremus yeah, but it's not quite as "up close and personal." And, if it gets obnoxious enough, you can always move to a corner of the room where the smell is less.

Actually, the smell of bowel contents never really bothered me too much either. I got used to vomitus pretty quickly, but never completely over it.

The worst was pus in large abscesses. Those called for oil of clove or mint oil to be dribbled into your mask.

[bachophile]

oh shit is nothing, i smell other peoples shit, in and out of the body all the time....have been in plenty of colon perforations with plenty of fecal material floating around where it shouldn't be/

whats gag reflex causing to me is rotting necrotic flesh....and ive had my fill of that also
what George mentioned about abscesses, its not the pus that smells, its the dead tissue,

[Jolly]

Floaters and crispy critters.

Floaters are the worst ..

[Renauda]

@Jolly

An acquaintance from university who eventually went to med school used to work summers at the Provincial Coroner’s Lab as a medical examiner’s assistant. I remember him saying the same about the stench of floaters and that they tended to fall apart when handled.

My firemen friends said that month or more old corpses in apartments made for bad call outs as well. One said that as soon he would walk ten feet into a four or five storey walk-up, he could tell how bad it was going to be regardless of what floor the corpse lay.