Medical slang

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Medical slang is the slang of doctors, nurses, paramedics and other hospital and medical staff. One part of medical slang is the use of technical-looking acronyms to describe patients, co-workers or situations, often facetiously, to other medical professionals. Medical slang is found around the world and has entered popular culture through the medium of hospital and forensic dramas such as Casualty (UK), Holby City (UK), ER (US), House MD (US), NCIS (US) and Green Wing (UK).

Limitations on use

In many countries, facetious or insulting acronyms are now considered unethical and unacceptable because patients can demand access to their medical records. Medical facilities risk being sued by patients offended by the descriptions. Another reason for the decline is that facetious acronyms could be confused with genuine medical terms and the wrong treatment administered.In one of his annual reports (related by the BBC), medical slang collector Dr. Adam Fox cited an example where “TTFO” had been entered on a patient’s chart. This acronym means “told to fuck off” (q.v.). When quizzed about the term, the doctor was quick-witted enough to say it meant “to take fluids orally.”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3159813.stm While this may or may not be true, it indicates the danger of using informal—and frequently insulting—acronyms.As a result, medical slang tends to be restricted to verbal use and to informal notes or E-mails which do not form part of a patient’s formal records. It may also be used among medical staff outside of the hospital. It is not found on patients’ charts and, due to growing awareness of medical slang, often not used in front of patients themselves.

Non-English

Although online medical slang dictionaries are primarily from English-speaking countries, non-English medical slang has been collected by Fox from elsewhere. Brazilian medical slang includes PIMBA ("Pé Inchado Mulambo Bêbado Atropelado" meaning "swollen-footed, drunk, run-over beggar"), Poliesculhambado (multi-messed-up patient) and Trambiclínica (a "fraudulent clinic" staffed cheaply by medical students).

Annual round-up of medical slang

There is an annual round-up of the usage of medical slang by British physician Dr. Adam Fox of St Mary's Hospital, London. Fox has spent five years charting more than 200 examples, regional and national terms and the general decline of medical slang. He believes that doctors have become more respectful of patients, which has contributed to the decline. While its use may be declining in the medical profession, several dictionaries of the slang have been compiled on the internet.

Terms

  • 404 moment - The point in a doctor's ward round when medical records cannot be located. Comes from internet error message, "404 - document not found". http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22958556-2,00.html
  • Acades vulgaris - medical students. http://www.medicalspamd.com/the-blog/2007/5/19/medical-slang-how-doctors-insult-their-patients-and-each-other.html
  • Adminisphere - where hospital managers work, reckoned to be "another planet"
  • Agnostication - A substitute for prognostication. Term used to the describe the usually vain attempt to answer the question: "How long have I got, doc?"
  • Appy - a person's appendix or a patient with appendicitis http://health.howstuffworks.com/decoding-28-medical-slang-terms.htm
  • Ax(e) - surgeon
  • Baby Catcher - an obstetrician
  • Bagging - manually helping a patient breathe using a squeeze bag attached to a mask that covers the face
  • Banana - a person with jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes)
  • Blamestorming - Apportioning of blame after the wrong leg or kidney is removed or some other particularly egregious foul-up happens.
  • Blade - Surgeon: dashing, bold, arrogant and often wrong, but never in doubt
  • Blood Suckers/Leeches - those who take blood samples, such as laboratory technicians
  • Bones and Groans - non-specialist general hospital
  • BoneHo - an off-service resident working in Orthopedics
  • Bounceback - a patient who returns to the emergency department with the same complaints shortly after being released
  • Bury the Hatchet accidentally leaving a surgical instrument inside a patient
  • C&T Ward - Coma ward - "cabbages and turnips"
  • Captain Kangaroo - head of a paediatrics department
  • Cath Jockey - A cardiologist that catheterizes every patient they see. Or one that does cardiac catherizations.
  • CBC - complete blood count; an all-purpose blood test used to diagnose different illnesses and conditions
  • CNS-QNS - Central Nervous System - Quantity Not Sufficient.
  • Cock Doc - urologist
  • Code Brown - a faecal incontinence emergency.
  • Code Yellow - a patient who has lost control of his or her bladder
  • Crook-U - similar to the ICU or PICU, but referring to a prison ward in the hospital
  • CTD - "Circling The Drain" http://www.irishhealth.com/?id=5170&level=4
  • Cunts and Runts - Maternity and Paediatrics
  • DBI - "Dirt Bag Index", and multiplies the number of tattoos with the number of missing teeth to give an estimate of the number of days since the patient last bathed.
  • Departure lounge - geriatric ward
  • Digging for Worms - varicose vein surgery
  • Disco biscuits - Referring to the nightclub drug ecstasy. Usage: "The man in cubicle three looks like he's taken one too many disco biscuits. Also means the drug quaaludes.
  • DNR - do not resuscitate; a written request made by terminally ill or elderly patients who do not want extraordinary efforts made if they go into cardiac arrest, a coma, etc.
  • Doc in a Box - a small health-care center, usually with high staff turnover
  • Flea - internal medicine doctor
  • FLK - "Funny Looking Kid'' - for genetic quirks or inbreeding.
  • Foley - a catheter used to drain the bladder of urine
  • Freud Squad - the psychiatry department
  • Gas Passer - an anesthesiologist (also Gasser, Gas Man or Gaswallah)
  • GOMER - "get out of my emergency room". Is a patient, usually poor or elderly, in the emergency room with a chronic, non-emergency condition. The name was popularized by Samuel Shem in his novel The House of God.
  • GLM - good looking mum
  • GPO - "Good for Parts Only''
  • GROLIES - Guardian Reader Of Low Intelligence in Ethnic Skirt.
  • GSW - gunshot wound
  • Handbag positive - confused patient (usually elderly lady) lying on hospital bed clutching handbag
  • Hasselhoff - A term for any patient who shows up in the emergency room with an injury for which there is a bizarre explanation. Oringial Source: Baywatch actor David Hasselhoff, who hit his head on a chandelier while shaving. The broken glass severed four tendons and an artery in his right arm.
  • Hearts and Farts - unit specialising in geriatrics and cardiology
  • Humpty-dumpty doctor - a physiatrist or rehabilitation physician; referring to verse from the popular nursery rhyme that "all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put humpty together again."
  • Inbreds - doctors whose parents are also doctors
  • Knuckledragger - orthopedist
  • Larry - Locum, as in "doing a Larry"
  • LOBNH - ("Lights On But Nobody Home'') or the impressively bogus
  • MI - myocardial infarction; a heart attack
  • M & Ms - mortality and morbidity conferences where doctors and other health-care professionals discuss mistakes and patient deaths
  • MVA - motor vehicle accident
  • NFN - "Normal For Norfolk", (a rural English county.)
  • O-sign - A patient is "giving the O-sign" who is is very sick, lying with his mouth open. This is followed by the Q-sign - when the tongue hangs out of the mouth - when the patient becomes terminal.
  • Oligoneuronal meaning someone who is thick (not smart).
  • Orthopod - orthopedist
  • Overpriced Carpenter - orthopedist
  • PAFO - "Pissed And Fell Over"
  • Pediatron - paediatrician
  • Pecker checker see Cock Doc
  • PFO - see PAFO
  • Pumpkin positive refers to the idea that a person's brain is so tiny that a penlight shone into their mouth will make their empty head gleam like a Halloween pumpkin.
  • Q-sign - see O-Sign
  • Raisin Farm - old person's home, geriatric ward etc (also Raisin Farmer - person who runs old persons' home)
  • Rear Admiral - a proctologist
  • Removal men - dept of care of elderly people
  • Rheumaholiday - rheumatology (considered by hard-pressed juniors to be a less busy dept)
  • Rule of Five - means that if more than five of the patient's orifices are obscured by tubing, he has no chance of survival.
  • Slasher - surgeon
  • Shadow gazer - radiologist
  • Short-order chef - morgue worker
  • Shotgunning - ordering a wide variety of tests in the hope that one will show what's wrong with a patient
  • Sieve - a doctor who admits almost every patient he sees
  • Stat - from the Latin statinum, meaning immediately
  • Stream team - the urology service collectively
  • Testiculation - Description of a gesture typically used by hospital consultant "when holding forth on subject on which he or she has little knowledge". Gesture is of an upturned hand with outstretched fingers pointed upwards, clutching an invisible pair of testicles.
  • TEETH - tried everything else, try homeopathy.
  • Tox Screen - testing the blood for the level and type of drugs in a patient's system
  • TTFO - Told To Fuck Off or To Take Fluids Orally.
  • TTR - Tea Time Review
  • UBI - "Unexplained Beer Injury"
  • Unclear medicine - nuclear medicine
  • 'Woolworths Test' - Anaesthetic term (if you can imagine patient shopping in Woolies, its safe to give a general anaesthetic)


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