06/15/2026
There’s no way to ease into today’s topic. So let’s push forward into the ever-popular palindrome of P**P. The squeamish may need to skip this week’s article. *Just know, to help demystify and disarm this discussion I am deliberately using all derogatory designations for “dookie.” Is that mature of me? No. But is it important? Also, no. But I’m doing it, so buckle up. Mentoring a nursing student recently, we discussed her comfort in certain bodily fluids/substances and how it’s just part of our gig. Face it, if you are not in healthcare, plumbing, sanitation, or current raising a diaper-baby, you can probably live in blissful ignorance and only encounter your own p**p. *Farmers, yes. I know y’all deal with other SPECIES’ f***s; I salute you. I also recognize the irony in me instructing to eat crunchy vegetables, so you can have a healthy colon, then the body producing a waste product that can then be used to help fertilize crops to make crunchy vegetables! Cue Elton John’s “Circle of Life” here.
In my field, “doo-doo” is a valuable diagnostic substance. As detailed in a previous Medical Minute, the dreaded “running off at the stomach” is 90% a bad bite of food or a virus someone kindly passed to you. Those wreck you and then leave about as suddenly as they come in 48-72 hours. We typically don’t run up a bill of tests and scans in that window if you are stable; just give you meds to weather the storm and ride it out. If something lasts longer than that, THEN we start thinking the weirdo things like salmonella, E.Coli or all sorts of bizarro causes from “I drank the water in Mexico” to “I drank from my pasture pond.” How do we test for these? P**P! I typically make a “gift bag” for you – rubber gloves, an official sterile sample jar, a tongue depressor (to use as a scoop), a “hat” to go over your toilet and catch the sample, a bio bag to seal it in, and an order. I set you loose (funny phrasing intended) on this adventure and when you have your sample, you simply go to the hospital and the lab workers take it from you like making a deposit in a really twisted bank. There, my lab nerds have their fun, Lord bless them. Microscopes and chemical reactions, sight and yes, sniff tests, and culture plates, etc. No different than us testing your blood, snot, phlegm, pus, saliva, urine, lions and tigers, oh my!
I purposefully pen this piece today with 1 Peter in mind. If you are reading this and thinking “pfft, none of that grosses me out” guess what? You may be one of us. God blesses us with talents that He intended us to use. Not being fazed by bodily excretions is a talent many do not possess. MANY. Are you sitting on talents God blessed you with? Come see me and let’s discuss how you can use this talent to serve! Poo, p*e, vomit, blood, etc are all treasured in our field. Don’t judge! Hey, at least I’m not purposefully reaching into people’s mouth like a dentist. What a bunch of psychos…
Yours in Health and Christ, Dr. Kirk.
