Medical slang in Wikipedia

LuckyLisfranc · Jul 23, 2010

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What 'podiatry slang' would you add to this list?

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 ****ing know, don't ****ing 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 - ****ed Up Beyond All Recognition

F.BUNDY - Refers to slowly dying patient who is ****ed, But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet. Also TF.BUNDY: Totally ****ed 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 ****, 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 ****ing 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 **** - 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 [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 - ****** 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 - ****** 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 **** 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

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MJJ · Jul 23, 2010

One of my favourites isn't on that list.

OFIGATOOS - One Foot In Grave And The Other One Slipping

NewsBot · Jul 24, 2010

Medical slang

Medical slang is the use of acronyms and informal terminology to describe patients, other healthcare personnel and medical concepts. Some terms are pejorative. In English, medical slang has entered popular culture via television hospital and forensic science dramas such as ER, House M.D., NCIS, Scrubs, and Grey's Anatomy, and through fiction, in books such as The House of God by Samuel Shem (Stephen Joseph Bergman), Bodies by Jed Mercurio, and A Case of Need by Jeffery Hudson (Michael Crichton)
Examples of pejorative language include bagged and tagged for a corpse, a reference to the intake process at a mortuary; donorcycle for motorcycle or PFO for pissed [drunk] and fell over. Less offensive are the terms blue pipes for veins; cabbage for a heart bypass (coronary artery bypass graft or CABG), and champagne tap for a flawless lumbar puncture, that is, one where erythrocyte count is zero.

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Robertisaacs · Jul 24, 2010

SASSE- Seen a Shoe shop "expert"

WSS - Wearing stupid Shoes.

TTTBE - Thinks THEY'RE the bloody expert

O2T - Oxygen theif (surprised that one was not there already)

UGWYHA - Used google. Why you here again?

Medical slang in Wikipedia

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Medical slang in Wikipedia

LuckyLisfranc Well-Known Member

MJJ Active Member

NewsBot The Admin that posts the news.

Medical slang

Robertisaacs MVP

Medical Grade Heel Lifts for Shoes

The Podiatric Medical Profession: A Gender Comparison

College Courses with no medical background needed

Medical Professionals’ Distance Running Advice and Treatment

Medical History Templates for New patients

Lack of medical consult for an ankle injury

Trends in Foot and Ankle Studies Published in High-Impact General Medical Journals

Share This Page

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