Gross

I'm usually okay with most gross things. Over the last year and a half, I've encountered spurting blood, dead skin, extensive burns, intestines, amniotic fluid, scabies (mites), stool, bodily secretions of all sorts. Surprisingly, I've done okay. But today we had microbiology rounds with a focus on parasite vectors and worms. That's a whole different story. It was actually quite cool, in a horror movie sort of way, looking at magnified images of mites, lice, ticks, fleas, and bed bugs. Indeed, I don't think I had ever seen a tick before today. It was pretty educational, but I learned entomology is not my forte. We then looked at whipworms, pinworms, roundworms, tapeworms, and their eggs which are also fairly disgusting. These are more visible to the naked eye, and the microbiology lab has quite a collection of preserved specimens.

Image of Ixodes scapularis tick is in the public domain, from Wikipedia.