The Sebaceous Cyst

So I was in the clinic on Tuesday like I am every week and this women came in to have "a boil" on her back checked. It had popped up earlier in the week and she went to the emergency room to have it treated. It was infected and they incised it and packed it to treat it. When the doctor I was with looked at it he realized it was a sebaceous cyst, which form from the lining of a hair follicle and fills with a really stinky white fluid. It wasn't treated previously like a sebaceous cyst, and in order for it not to come back, the doctor decided he needed to make sure the entire capsule was removed from the wound, so he took some tweezers and put them through the incision that was already there (it hadn't closed yet) and he started pulling out pieces of the cyst capsule. I watched him the whole time. "This is kind of gross", I thought. But having a strong stomach, it didn't bother me. But the longer I watched, the more nauseous I started to feel. And it got to the point where I had to leave the room and went into the bathroom and retched (though nothing came up). I was actually quite embarrassed. I've seen some gross things (organs being removed, scalps being pulled up over the face) and this stupid little cyst make me almost throw up. But I like to blame it on the fact that my stomach was empty, cause I want to be a surgeon and apparently that kind of thing is the whole first year. It'll never happen again.

For a more graphic picture of sebaceous cysts go here:

Warning: full frontal male nudity :)

http://www.ispub.com/xml/journals/ijs/vol9n1/scrotum-fig1.jpg