Clinic Smell

Every hospital, clinic, or dentists office I have ever been to has had a very recognizable smell. I know that smell is the sense most associated with memory, so I was thinking that it might be cool to try and create that smell for a play exam. I assume its some kind of cleaning product...but does anyone know for sure?

It always reminds me of an alcohol smell.

Its a very strong disinfectant smell - I would say closer to phenyl than anything else.I don't know if its just me but whenever I fly US Airways from SFO (especially the bigger crafts A320/321/340), just after boarding I get a very similar smell. Does that make Doug Parker a med-fet ? Or do I need to get my nose checked ? 😄

Many dentist´s offices do indeed have a very distinctive smell. From what I can recall it is partly due to use of oil of cloves. I once asked my dentist about it. Oil of cloves is an old remedy used to relieve pain from toothaches and I remember that my dentist would often swab a freshly drilled filling with something based on oil of cloves, prior to filling the filling up ...

Maybe you also remember the movie Marathon Man? Dustin Hoffman is tortured by Lawrence Olivier (evil Nazi doctor) who drills holes in his teeth. Olivier then promises a bottle of oil of cloves to deaden the pain if Hoffman tells him what he wants to know. I think plucky Dustin steals the bottle, and escapes as he keeps on pouring the oil on his poor teeth. And the world is saved from a Fourth Reich.

Anyway, oil of cloves should be very easy to find and buy.

This would not be good for me.

The sights, smell, and sounds of a hospital are what set off my PTSD. I try to avoid them.

Hospitals here used a product called Milton, it was a general purpose disinfectant/ cleaner. Every Hospital/clinic reeked of the stuff.

Milton fluid was used here in the UK for the sterilization/disinfection of baby equipment, my memories of this are from the late 1970's, as to whether it's still used I cannot say.

Many years ago hospitals in the UK used to use a disinfectant called Cidex (Glutaraldehyde). This gave a very powerful aroma in the buildings sometimes and was used mostly to steralize surgical instruments. However Cidex was banned here circa 2002 as it was deemed to be dangerous with regards to asthma and problems affecting the skin. There was talk at the time of it being banned in other countries, but I do not know if this happened.

I've just been using some betadyne/iso-betadine and it has a distinctive medicinal smell to it I find. A sort of cross between alcohol and a very strong soap. You should be able to buy it at any pharmacy or American/British drug store.

And it has the added benefit of being a very good disinfectant ... the wounds and stuff I've kept clean with this would make quite a list ...

One thing I remember from my childhood stay in hospital was a pungent smell of camphor or similar associated with the trolley carrying the thermometers. I think they put them in some kind of camphor alcohol.

The smell which is most evocative for me is the smell of paraldehyde which used to be used to treat DTs. It brings back Ward 43 of the old San Francisco General Hospital most vividly. With it the angst of being a student, the callow feeling with it and the fear of not being able to stay there as an intern. I wasn't allowed to stay there but instead ended up in Oakland instead. Also the smell of Staph aureus pus and the gagging smell of anaerobic bacterial pus. Quick stop me!

Ah, yes, the smell of pus from an infected wound, especially if, as @liquidsky mentions, it's from an infection caused by an anaerobic bacterium. When I was in college and working in the operating room during the summer break to earn some money, I had the displeasure of being present when the surgeons were debriding, or removing a gangrenous limb. I do remember the paraldehyde smell as well when it was being used to control the seizures of one of the patients. As a patient however, I react most strongly to the odor of good old isopropyl alcohol.

As a pharmaceutical Rep. for 35 years, I have gone into thousands of doctor's offices and yes, they all have that clinical aroma. The most distinct was when I called on black OB-GYN's, with all black female patients. Every one of those offices smelled exactly like the old Orange colored LifeBouy Soap from the 40's and 50's. It was not at all unpleasant, but unique. I assume that some kind of disinfectant was used in those offices, that I just never encountered in other offices. I did NOT pick up this aroma in all black Family Practice offices, just in the ob-gyn's.

liquidsky, I also recall the smell of a culture of Clostridium sporogenes in our microbiology lab. Sickening! Do all anaerobes have this disgusting odor?

Smell for me is a very important thing. I have always smelled everything, even from the time I was little. I think i picked it up off of MASH because Alan Alda's character Hawkeye smelled everything too. Not sure, but I still do to this day. I'm with Srg Rik, the smell of isopropyl is a HUGE turn on for me, I mean HUGE. Might be part of why I am an injection lover.

Smells as mentioned above can also be really bad like C-Diff. Wowza, talk about a smell that fill an entire hallway. I will say this though, my ornate ability to identify smells as well as I do have actually come in quite handy as a nurse. There have been many times when I have been able to smell an infection before anyone else even knew it was brewing. I've had many doctors over the years ask me how I knew this was this, or that patient had that and I just told them that I could smell it. Most of them just would either say, "Really?" Or they would say, "I know it has an odor, but not usually this early on." Well I can smell it.

Many things in my career have smells that are not at all present. I can tell a lot about someone by their smell, body smell, breath, stool, urine, mucous etc. I can almost always smell cancer on someone, and almost always smell the scent of death. Usually when I smell death I figure it's coming soon anyway, but sometimes it's not always. That's when it's hard. Now this is not 100 percent all the time and not always accurate, but I would say a good 75-80 percent of the time I"m right. And trust me when I tell you, it's not always a good thing to be right.

I also associate different smells to different things, again, I am not sure why I do this but I do and always have. My grandma's house had a certain smell. I found that smell very comforting for some reason or another. Well when she used to bake things those baked goods would sort of taste how her house smelled. I know that sounds crazy but that's the only way I can explain it. Also, sweaty balls smell exactly like corn chips or burritos. Corn chips on someones breath smell like athletes foot. Yes, I can go on, but I"m guessing you don't want me to, lol.

Mashie

There is much experience talking there, Mashie.

Thank you DrZ, you always have the nicest things to say. Almost every single day you make me smile at something you say to me or something you post, lol. You rock!

Mashie

I hate the smell of my dentist. I get in the front door and my teath start hurting.

I seldom have a cavity but my teath will hurt for several days after I am there.

You know stick, I never even thought about that, but you are exactly correct. I hate the dentist. I hate the smells, I hate the sounds, I hate the atmosphere, lol. I just hate hate hate it, lol.

Mashie

Mashie my dear as usual you have nailed the smell issue. In my much younger days my GP was an older woman who received her training during WW2 when most men were off to the battlefield. At that time there were no analytical instruments around so Docs were pretty much up to their own senses to diagnose things. Ann, as did many of her colleagues , developed an ability to smell symptoms before treating them. She also sometimes relied on taste of the pt skin for clues. Her greatest coup was diagnosing a bleeding ulcer in me long before it became a serious issue. She simply said that she could smell it as soon as I walked into the office. Skills ,be they parenting, driving or medical don't just come from books. They come from people who pay serious attention to what they are doing and act accordingly. Why in the world aren't you a teacher? Well maybe you are.

It's conceivable that she could smell melena which is digested blood. It has a pungent and very characteristic smell.

Realblueyes, I have to be 100 percent honest with you. I have actually decided to go back to school and get my masters in nursing because I want to teach the future nurses. It's just really weird that you said that today because I have been thinking about it a lot as of late.

When I graduated from high school I had 2 scholarships I could pick from, a full ride to Ohio University for medical, or to Otterbein for teaching. Otterbein is a private college and my scholarship was for half of my tuition. I was a poor kid growing up so I took the full ride, the sure thing. I was at the time trying to decide between nursing or being a history and English teacher. Obviously I went into nursing. But I have never lost site of wanting to teach. And to be honest with you, yesterday, Sept 27th was my 45th birthday and I am starting to slow down a bit. I no longer need or want the rush of hoping up on a gurney doing CPR as people are pushing you into the OR. I no longer have the need to, or feel like I'm not a real nurse if I am not doing CPR 3-5 times a week. I have seen so much, done so much.

When I get the chance to work in facilities where student nurses come in I actually really love it. I enjoy teaching them what real nursing is, and what it should be. I love seeing their little virgin faces light up when they connect the dots and suddenly they realize that the neck bone ain't connected to the leg bone, lol.

I am not the smarted person by far, just slightly above average at best, but I have impeccable critical thinking skills, and I am not trying to brag here at all, but critical thinking skills are very important in medicine. You can teach some, but most of it is just natural instinct. I love getting the students to reach deep down in themselves and look for those critical thinking skills and to recognize them and embrace them. They need to nurture those and feed them for lack of better terms in order to be a great medical professional.

When I went to nursing school it was basically broken up into 2 different parts. Part one was all book work, part 2 was application and critical thinking. They made it very clear to us that almost 100 percent of the people who drop out or fail do so in the second half because they find critical thinking very difficult. For me it was the opposite. I will be honest with you, I never even cracked a book in nursing school, ever. I just took great notes. I did okay, probably the top 10 percent of my class. But during the second half I just excelled. I loved school so much then. I watched all my friends and most of the class struggling and wasn't able to understand why it was so hard for them, why they were not getting it. Well, we had great teachers, so much so that my school is the, well was, I"m not sure about now, but it was the number one ranked nursing school in Ohio. In all the years they were open they had 100 percent pass rate on the NCLEX, with the exception of once or twice. That's huge. But as good as they are, they didn't know how to help their students grasp the concept of critical thinking.

So not sure why I just had verbal diarrhea lol, this post definitely didn't need to be this long, but I want to change the way nursing is taught. I also want to teach nurses that we don't have to eat each other. I made up a saying that I pass along to others which is, "I will teach ya, not eat ya". And that's exactly what I do.

Anyway, all I really needed to say here was thank you, that is probably the biggest compliment I have ever received. You touched on my true passion and picked up on that as well. Thank you for all of that.

Sincerely,

Mashie

I think anyone that have every worked or stayed in a hospital will be familiar with that clinical smell. As a student nurse (pre project 2000), we changed wards every 8 to 12 weeks and each ward had there own unique smell . Well all had a bit of a runny nose for a few days until you became familiar with the bugs in that environment.

As for smells and odours like Mashie described, you learn to carry on working , and it can get a bit harrowing at times. In the last few years with the advent of odours eliminators we have employed them free after any situation in which a odour can develop . To treat odours in our clinical area we use Oust Odour Eliminator.

I think every nurse has some smells, odours they dont like, everyone of my colleagues do .Personally I dont like the smell of Malena, one sister can't stand the smell of a colostomy bag, another its infected sputum.

As Mashie said you can recognize some bugs by the smell, i can always tell Pseudomonas by its smell as well as C Diff.

Lastly I will say that after a shift when you get into the shower , you can be reminded of the days odours .It for that reason that I have a separate work wardrobe including underwear and hamper for my work clothes. Thankfully now we don't have to launder our own scrubs but as as student we had to launder our own tunics and trousers.

I can tell a lot about someone by their smell, body smell, breath, stool, urine, mucous etc. I can almost always smell cancer on someone, and almost always smell the scent of death. Usually when I smell death I figure it's coming soon anyway, but sometimes it's not always.

Wow there, scary ... if you were in a Monty Python sketch and said that, the whole crowd would probably cry out: 'She's a witch! Burn her!' ... ha ha

More seriously though, can you try and describe this, what the smell is like? And when you say cancer, which type do you mean? There are so many different diseases all lumped together as cancer in common speech ... do they have anything in common then? Say the difference between an acute leukemia or a teratoma? Very curious about this ...

I have actually decided to go back to school and get my masters in nursing because I want to teach the future nurses. It's just really weird that you said that today because I have been thinking about it a lot as of late.

When I get the chance to work in facilities where student nurses come in I actually really love it. I enjoy teaching them what real nursing is, and what it should be. I love seeing their little virgin faces light up when they connect the dots and suddenly they realize that the neck bone ain't connected to the leg bone, lol.

I am not the smarted person by far, just slightly above average at best, but I have impeccable critical thinking skills, and I am not trying to brag here at all, but critical thinking skills are very important in medicine. You can teach some, but most of it is just natural instinct. I love getting the students to reach deep down in themselves and look for those critical thinking skills and to recognize them and embrace them. They need to nurture those and feed them for lack of better terms in order to be a great medical professional.

Mashie, I understand this perfectly. People who have seen and done it all should pass on the benefit of their knowledge and experience to others. The lives saved... and those lost, not for want of trying... have made you the nurse you are. I wish you well with your ambitions.

A good mentor can make all the difference. Particularly in my teens and twenties, I had several, who saw things in me and others like me, that could be developed. Now, I know many of the real secrets because I was judged fit to know them. There are three young guys who I believe I can reveal this knowledge to in the fullness of time.

Likewise, in nursing, I'm sure there must little pieces of knowledge you possess that would not, and could not, be taught in a classroom. It is important not to allow these skills to die.

Go for it. 😉

While first wife was in nursing school, she was doing her newborn nursery care assignment. There was an elderly LPN who warned the student nurses to throw a cover over baby boys when they were changing diapers. She forget and was treated to a long, arching spray of baby urine all over her cap, hair and face.

Jimmy it's happened to me too. The skill involved is how quickly one can staunch it with a towel or diaper. It happened a lot when we circumcised them. I guess it was a way of protesting the indignity of what was happening. Also I think Boyles law was in effect. The streams were often geyserish in the distance they could reach.

The streams were often geyserish in the distance they could reach.

This sounds like one of my wife's performances. 😁

But straight up into your face? Yikes!!???

Ha. Er, no, not vertical but quite some distance horizontal. More or less. 😁

But I bet I could do it vertical if I got into the right position. Next time you need your face washing Hahaha :-)