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Medical slang is a form of slang used by doctors, nurses, paramedics and other hospital or medical staff. Its central aspect is the use of facetious but impressive-sounding acronyms and invented terminology to describe patients, co-workers or tricky situations. It serves, in other words, as a convenient if often gruesome code between medical professionals. Medical slang is to be found in numerous languages but in English, in particular, it has entered popular culture via TV hospital/forensic dramas such as Casualty, Holby City, ER, House MD, NCIS, Scrubs and Green Wing.

Limitations on use

In many countries, facetious or insulting acronyms are now considered unethical and unacceptable, and 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 a practitioner had entered “TTFO,” meaning “told to fuck off,” on a patient’s chart. When questioned about the chart entry, the practitioner was quick-witted enough to say that the initials stood for “to take fluids orally.”[1] 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 oral 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)[1].

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.[citation needed]

Terms

  • 6PFP - 6-pack and a fishing pole, as in "this patient doesn't need chemo, he needs 6PFP." - Usually referring to an end-stage patient who should go die somewhere else.
  • 404 moment - The point in a doctor's ward round when medical records cannot be located. Comes from HTTP 404 error "Not Found".[2]
  • AGMI - Ain't Gonna Make It
  • Agnostication - A substitute for prognostication. Term used to describe the usually vain attempt to answer the question: "How long have I got, doc?" [2]
  • Appy - a person's appendix or a patient with appendicitis [3]
  • ART - Assuming Room Temperature (dying)
  • Ash cash - UK peculiarity of house officers obtaining payment for signing cremation forms[4]
  • ATS - Acute Thespian Syndrome (the patient is faking illness)
  • Baby Catcher - an obstetrician [3]
  • Bagging - manually helping a patient breathe using an Ambu bag attached to a mask that covers the face [3]
  • Bash cash - UK peculiarity of Registrars obtaining payment for medical reports on patients who have allegedly been assaulted[4]
  • Beached Whale - A patient who is unable to get out of bed.
  • Blamestorming - Apportionment of blame after the wrong leg or kidney is removed or some other particularly egregious foul-up.[2]
  • Blood Suckers/Leeches/Vampires - those who take blood samples, such as laboratory technicians and Phlebotomists [3]
  • Bounceback - a patient who returns to the emergency department with the same complaints shortly after being released [3]
  • Bury the Hatchet - accidentally leaving a surgical instrument inside a patient [3]
  • CNS-QNS - Central Nervous System - Quantity Not Sufficient.[1]
  • Code Brown - a faecal incontinence emergency. Often used by nurses and medical technicians requesting help cleaning up an unexpected bowel movement.[2][3]
  • Code Yellow - a patient who has lost control of his or her bladder [3]
  • CTD - "Circling The Drain" [1][2][5] May also mean "Certain To Die"
  • Crump - When a patient tries to die on the medical practitioner. Usage: "My patient tried to crump on me repeatedly throughout the night".
  • DBI - Dirt Bag Index - multiply the number of tattoos by the number of missing teeth to give an estimate of the number of days since the patient last bathed.[1]
  • Departure lounge - geriatric ward [1]
  • Dermaholiday - dermatology, considered to be a less-busy department. See rheumaholiday
  • DFKDFC - Don't fucking know, don't fucking care - a diagnosis often applied to a surgery's most regular visitors. Most often treated with a low-dosage course of Amoxycillin.
  • DIC - Death Is Coming, Death In Cage - used by veterinarians describing the complications of Disseminated intravascular coagulation
  • Digging for Worms - varicose vein surgery [1]
  • Disco biscuits - refers to the nightclub drug ecstasy. Usage: "The man in cubicle three looks like he's taken one too many disco biscuit".[2] Also means the drug quaaludes.
  • Doc in a Box - a small health-care center, usually with high staff turnover [3]
  • Donorcycle - American nursing slang for a motorcycle, so named due to the amount of head trauma associated with motorcycle accidents, but less so with the body, making the perfect candidate for organ donation (noting the lack of helmet laws in some American states)[6]
  • DRT - Dead Right There
  • EFT - Eleventh Floor Transfer (in a 10 floor hospital; refers to patient who is very close to death)
  • FUBAR - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition
  • F.BUNDY - Refers to slowly dying patient who is Fucked, But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet. Also TF.BUNDY: Totally fucked but unfortunately not dead yet.
  • FLK - Funny Looking Kid - used to indicate a child (usually a newborn) whose habitus or overall appearance, while normal in gross anatomy, suggests a need further medical investigation for congenital and genetic anomalies.[1][2] "Funny", in this sense, means strange or unusual, not laughable.
  • FOS - Full Of Shit, a diagnosis given to a patient that is likely not telling the truth or, alternatively to a patient with a bowel obstruction.
  • Frequent Flyer - Patient who calls ambulance multiple times usually when they could seek help in better ways.[1]
  • Freud Squad - the psychiatry department [1][3]
  • FTD - Fixin' to Die [7]
  • Gas Passer - an anesthesiologist (also Gasser, Gas Man or Gaswallah) [1][3]
  • GI Rounds - medical staff taking a break to eat lunch/dinner
  • GOMER - "get out of my emergency room" - 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.[8]
  • GLM - good looking mum (MILF in the US) [1][5]
  • GPO - "Good for Parts Only [1][2][5]
  • GROLIES - Guardian Reader Of Low Intelligence in Ethnic Skirt.[1]
  • Handbag positive - confused patient (usually elderly lady) lying on hospital bed clutching handbag [1]
  • Hasselhoff - a term for any patient who shows up in the emergency room with an injury for which there is a bizarre explanation. Original 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.[2]
  • HP - Hispanic Panic, used to describe a Hispanic patient who believes their condition is worse than it actually is. This is generally a result of the perceived over-dramatic and theatrical nature of many Hispanic cultures.
  • Jack Bauer - Doctor still up and working after 24 hours. (After the main character in 24)[citation needed]
  • JFDI - Just Fucking Do It - an order from stressed registrar/resident to argumentative know-it-all junior medical staff who are complaining and seriously underperforming during busiest on-call night from hell.
  • LOBNH - Lights On But Nobody Home [1][2]
  • LLS - Looks Like Shit - A first impression formed by emergency medical responders to a trauma patient showing signs of shock, such as palor.
  • M & Ms - mortality and morbidity conferences where doctors and other health-care professionals discuss mistakes and patient deaths (sometimes also called Death & Donuts) [3]
  • Milk Of Amnesia - Propofol, an anesthetic drug with a milky white color (and a reference to the term milk of magnesia).
  • NAD - No Abnormality Detected or Not Actually Done[4]
  • NAI - Non Accidental Injury - when patient is suspected of having been assaulted but hasn't said so. Often used as code for suspected child abuse.
  • NBI - No Bony Injury or No Bloody Idea
  • NFN - Normal For Norfolk, (a rural English county stereotypically associated with inbreeding.) [1][2]
  • NOF - Fractured neck of femur
  • O-sign - A patient is "giving the O-sign" when very sick and lying with mouth open. This is followed by the Q-sign - when the tongue hangs out of the mouth - when the patient becomes terminal.[2][3]
  • Oligoneuronal meaning someone who is thick (not smart).[2]
  • PAFO or PFO - Pissed And Fell Over [1][2]
  • Panmetabolopathy -a state wherein many (or all) metabolic parameters are out of bounds (usually associated with "Rule of Five" (see below))
  • PGT - Pissed and Got Thumped [1][2]
  • Polybabydadic - The state of having illegitimate children by several fathers, known or unknown.[9]
  • PPP - Piss Poor Protoplasm - a patient endowed with inferior/defective genetic material
  • 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 Jack-o'-lantern.[1][2]
  • Q-sign - see O-Sign [2][3]
  • Rear Admiral - a proctologist [3]
  • Rheumaholiday - rheumatology, considered by hard-pressed juniors to be a less busy department. See dermaholiday [1]
  • Rule of Five - means that if more than five of the patient's orifices are obscured by tubing, he has no chance of survival.[2]
  • Slasher - surgeon [1]
  • Shotgunning - ordering a wide variety of tests in the hope that one will show what's wrong with a patient [3]
  • Special K - Slang for the anesthetic and amnestic drug Ketamine.
  • Status Hispanicus - An overly agitated Hispanic patient (often Caribbean, seldom Mexican) who cannot stop screaming about their condition without providing useful information.[10]
  • 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.[2]
  • TEETH - tried everything else, try homeopathy.[1][5]
  • Tox Screen - toxicology screen, testing the blood for the level and type of drugs in a patient's system[3]
  • TTFO - Told To Fuck Off.[1]
  • TTR - Tea Time Review [1]
  • UBI - "Unexplained Beer Injury" [1][2][3][5]
  • UDI - "Unexplainable Drinking Injury"
  • Vitamin H - A Haldol injection, used in the ER setting to rapidly sedate patients who display dangerous or destructive behavior that threatens the safety of hospital staff and other patients[11].
  • WNL - Used for recording vital signs. It can mean "within normal limits" or "we never looked".
  • Woolworth's Test - Anaesthetic term (if you could have imagined patient shopping in Woolies, it's safe to give a general anaesthetic) [1]
  • WTDB (Pronounced "whiskey tango DB") - White Trash Douchebag[citation needed]

See also

References

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Further reading

  • ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 "Doctor slang is a dying art". BBC. 18 August 2003. Retrieved 2008-02-05. 
  • ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 "404 moment - new medical slang". Agence France-Presse. December 21, 2007. Retrieved 2008-02-05. 
  • ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 Howstuffworks "Decoding 28 Medical Slang Terms"
  • ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Citation/CS1/Suggestions' not found.
  • ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Doctors deny insulting patients with slang
  • ↑ Transwiki:Donorcycle
  • ↑ "The Free Dictionary". Retrieved 2008-03-12. 
  • ↑ Michael Quinion (2001-09-15). "Gomer". World Wide Words. 
  • ↑ Panda Bear Dictionary http://www.studentdoctor.net/pandabearmd/pandictionary/
  • ↑ "ER Stories". 
  • ↑ Cipriani A, Rendell JM, Geddes J. Haloperidol alone or in combination for acute mania. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2006, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD004362. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD004362.pub2. http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD004362/frame.html
    • Retrieved from "http://ssf.f15ijp.com/wiki/index.php?title=Medical_slang&oldid=38393"