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14 Doctors Share Some Of The Most Disturbing And Disgusting Things They’ve Witnessed At Work
Article created by: Greta Jaruševičiūtė
We are not all cut out to be doctors for a number of reasons. Biology might not have been your jam in university, or medical school might have been too overwhelming to even consider. Doctors have to be intelligent, hard-working, passionate and have lots of stamina for the many years of education they must get through. But one more thing every good doctor needs is a very strong stomach.Someone recently asked doctors on Reddit to share some of the weirdest things they have seen while on the job, and I will warn you right now, they have witnessed some crazy things. From the most disgusting to the most disturbing to stories featuring objects lodged in places they should have never been in the first place, we’ve gathered a bunch of these stories down below for you to read, and likely be shocked by. If you’re a medical professional, these posts might sound like an average Tuesday. But for most of us, these stories are horrifying (with a few hilarious ones sprinkled in as well). I would recommend that you don’t read this list while you are eating or drinking anything because your appetite might go running out the window, and if it’s too much for you to handle, I completely understand.
But if you are fascinated by the gross and bizarre things doctors encounter all the time, we hope you enjoy this list. Be sure to upvote the stories that freak you out the most, and then let us know in the comments if you are a healthcare professional who has witnessed the unthinkable at work. And then if you’re interested in hearing even more patient stories from doctors, we’ve got a list of some of the funniest ones in this Bored Panda article right here.
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#1
Baby was born in a small village with all her bowels and stomach outside of her body(gastroschisis)
Mum wrapped the baby up in a swaddle and mum dad and baby walked 8hours to the nearest hospital
Caused quite a ruckus in the emergency department triage counter as they couldnt speak the local language and had to open the swaddle to sjow the triage nurse what they meant
But all was well, Baby survived and went home well
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#2
Mexican doctor here. Got a call from a patient who wanted me to check on his wife since she had been laying in bed all morning. When I arrived I could smell rotten eggs and humidity in the room. Open the door and a body lays there, decomposed (probably 2-3 weeks), and the stench was strong because the mattress was all soggy due to the body liquids draining all over flesh. I took the poor old man outside and perform quick exploration, finding his left eye is moving uncontrollably and non-respondent to light. We call his family and I give them the news. Turns out he had been an epileptic his whole life but rarely took his treatment accordingly. Most probably he suffered a seizure that made him motor functional, but mentally challenged. One of the saddest cases I’ve encountered.
That night I took a long shower, called my parents to tell them I love them. Had to take the dog in bed just for comfort. 3 months past before I decided to do house visits again. Now I carry a hazmat mask in the car at any moment.
#3
Not a doc but was a medical researcher for a stretch. A homeless guy came in complaining of foot pain. He hadn’t taken his boots off for 18 months. Dr took one off, turned it upside down and a toe fell out.
#4
Patient came in with worsening lower limb ulcers and had been dressing them himself. Very poor social circumstances, poor self care. The stench was bad enough before the homemade dressings even came off, the kind of smell that sticks to everything. Once the dressings were taken down and the worst of the fumes were released, we hoped it was uphill from there. We were wrong. On closer inspection of the wounds, it somehow seemed it was moving. Tiny yellow maggots. Hundreds of them, dipping in and out of the flesh. Sterile maggots can be used therapeutically in certain cases to debride dead tissue but there was absolutely nothing sterile about this. One of the nurses took it upon herself to go at the legs with a tweezers and seemed to enjoy the never ending game of reverse-whac-a-mole. I left her to it. He got better.
#5
Not me, but a doctor friend. Woman came into the ER with a blanket over her, everyone assumed she was breastfeeding a baby. ….. turned out everyone was right except it was a RACCOON.
#6
Anesthesiologist here. Part of me thinks I went into medicine because I'm inherently nosy. Anyway, in my last year of residency, we had this young patient and her husband. She thought she was pregnant, as her periods had stopped and her belly was getting bigger. I don't know why she didn't go and see an OB but....anyway. She was at home at a point where she thought she was "8 or 9 months pregnant", felt "something pop" and a sharp pain and thought she was going into labor. Then, her legs went numb and she could no longer walk -she and her husband didn't think that was normal so they checked into our ED. She had a huge yolk sac tumor with mets to the spine, liver, and other places and had to go for an emergent spinal decompression given her neurological symptoms. I wasn't the anesthesia resident for that case, but I was the one for her 2nd surgery when they wanted to remove the primary tumor, and resect some of the liver mets. Primary tumor was about the size of a basketball. I felt so bad for that young couple, but I still wonder to this day why they didn't get some sort of ultrasound or see an OB.
Edit: But also, I have plenty of "things in the butt" stories bc they often go to the OR if they can't be easily removed. I find it most fun when patients try to explain how it got up there....when we all KNOW how it got up there. "Oh no, no, I was washing potatoes in the bath tub and accidentally sat on one!" .....yeah, no, that's not how it happened.
#7
When at highschool a mates mum was a nurse and told us about an old lady that came in complaining about sprouts growing down below, on examination there was in fact sprouts growing out of her. Turns out her memory wasn't the greatest and had used a potato to aid with a prolapsed uterus and forgotten about it.
#8
This is a story from my mom who was an RN for decades as a hospice nurse but worked in a small country hospital for several years when she was just starting out. While this story has a little gore in it, the weird thing is at the end:
One day a farmer came in from the field.
He was working on a disc tiller and one of the large metal discs fell off onto his head and sliced it open so the grey matter was visible. After he arrived at the ER, they got the guy onto a bed and he was fully conscious and talking. They were waiting for the helicopter to come take him to the "big" hospital that was probably an hour away by ambulance.
When the chopper arrived, the farmer sat up in bed so they could transfer him to the stretcher and a small piece of brain tissue fell onto the pillow. My mom pointed it out and the doc just picked it up and threw it in the trash can.
Because it was a small hospital and was rural, the same doctor did all the follow-up for the guy after he got home.
For the rest of his life he could remember up to New Year's eve 1961 and then New Years day in 1963. All of 1962 was completely erased from his mind as though it had never happened.
My mom always wondered if 1962 was in that small piece of brain the doctor threw in the can.
EDIT: I called my mom to verify this story and I guess that part of it had been modified in my own mind - my personal mandella effect. I'm leaving the story above so people can see what my mother corrected me about:
* The guy was barely conscious when arriving - not talking and wide awake - she said it was like he was holding onto consciousness until he realized he was at the hospital and then he was out.
* He had fractured his skull (those discs are huge) and there was like a "flap" of it that his scalp was still holding in place (for the most part).
* The whole hospital seemed to be involved d/t it being one of the largest traumas they had ever experienced.
* My mother was one of those given the task of cleaning up the room afterwards and she said that when she got home my dad (who is squeemish around blood) saw her cleaning her work clothes and passed out.
#9
During my internship, a person casually shared that he had been drinking sanitizer for past 3 months.
#10
Obligatory not a doctor but a paramedic -
Was taking an old lady home from the hospital in the middle of the night. Super sweet, seemed well put together. After getting off the freeway, we had to go through about 8 miles of underbrush on a dirt road that google maps didn't even recognize. When we finally got close, we realized we were in a swamp due to the 7 foot tall reeds surrounding the ambulance. We finally found her driveway and unloaded her. Her place was this huge, plantation style house practically spilling out books. Completely isolated from society.
Literally just mounds of books as well as antique statues, vases, paintings, taxidermied animals, even an old musket. We had to clear a path in her living room to let her off the stretcher. Apparently one of her dogs slipped past us as we were making our way in, so we had to spend 20 minutes trying to get the thing back inside. As we were leaving and putting the stretcher back together, we see a pair of glowing yellow eyes blinking at us from the brush behind the ambulance. We throw the stretcher in, book it, and don't talk about it again. The entire experience still feels like a fever dream and I'm pretty sure we almost got murdered by a mountain lion
#11
Had a guy come in after missing hemodialysis for a month and was eating a plate of imaginary food. He at least offered some.
#12
Nurse here: a guy who let his dog lick his diabetic ulcer on his foot because “the dog liked it”. He got a nasty infection, led to sepsis.
#13
Not a doctor but used to work in the OR. Had a guy come in with stomach/bowel issues. He was pretty young so it was concerning. Opened him up and found a toothpick sideways in his bowel causing blockage. He had no idea when he ate something with a toothpick
#14
450lbs woman bleeding from the belly button, which was obviously a very deep innie.
I resorted to a large speculum to visualize then cauterized the bleeding vessel.
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