In medicine we use "scut" specifically to mean "scut work" -- necessary but menial tasks in the care of the patient, such as emptying bed pans. You can work very hard doing scut work ("I'm getting scutted to death!") without really learning much medicine. There is even a little handbook, officially called The Physician's Pocket Reference, that everyone referes to as "The Scut Monkey" handbook, a scut monkey being of course the poor soul doing all the scut work.

See also number 3 on the list at: http://www.rfc791.org/~churl/lit/rant-cc3.html