8 Medical Terms Your Doctor Uses to Insult You
Who do you think are the most cynical people in the world? Cops? Executioners? Or maybe prostitutes? Clowns?
We're thinking it's doctors. If you want proof, check out some of the horrifying-yet-hilarious slang they use around the office. Yes, these are real.
What It Means: Patient Reassured And Told to Fuck Off.
When It's Used:
When a patient comes into the ER more hysterical than ill, the doctor reassures the patient and asks them to leave. However, this acronym has gotten at least one doctor into trouble when he scribbled it in a patient's chart and then later was asked to explain it in court.
We're not saying you should ever lie in court, but in that situation you should at least consider it.
What It Means:
Alright, Motherfucker, You're On Your Own.
When It's Used:
If television is to be believed, any condition, no matter how egregious or how slim the chances of survival, can be surmounted with the intervention of a charismatic, slightly eccentric doctor or the introduction of a particularly salient plot point.
Well, television is not to be believed. If a patient split from crotch to neck, sustained a shotgun wound to the chest, or fell twenty stories onto the pavement, then a great deal's up to a God. Assuming he exists, or cares. Thus we get the AMYOYO Syndrome diagnosis, with the variations SOLOMFYOYO (So long, Motherfucker, You're On Your Own) and GPO (Good for Parts Only).
What It Means: Shit-for-Brains.
When It's Used:
If you wind up in the emergency room because, say, you were trying to launch bottle rockets out of your anus, you can expect to hear this term thrown around. Latin, or pseudo-latin, is often used to convey unflattering terms and make it sound grandiloquent to the uninformed (or faecal-encephalopathic) ear.
Variations include Cranio-Rectal Syndrome and Cranial Rectosis, presumably for when the patient doesn't have shit for brains but merely has his head up his ass.
What It Means:
Also called an "Open and Close" or a "Peek and Shriek," this is when a surgeon opens up a patient for surgery, discovers nothing can be done to avert the inevitable, and sews them back up immediately. Or, if they feel like it, practice surgical technique for a while.
When It's Used:
Generally, this is encoded as "C&P," "CNP" or something similar, so that the head of the department knows what happened but the to-be-aggrieved family doesn't. Typically this happens with very old people, those with suddenly aggravated chronic health problems, or people with inoperable cancer, soon resulting in a "healthy tumor" (a dead patient).
What It Means: Something Bad Inside.
When It's Used:
When the medical staff encounters a strange complaint that doesn't meet any known diagnostic criteria. As much as you don't want to hear SBI as your diagnosis, it's still better than the alternate SVBI (Something Very Bad Inside) which means whatever it is appears to be killing you.
Either may be followed up with a "SWAG" (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess).
What It Means:
Cletus the Fetus. Used to describe infants born at 23 weeks or earlier, where their survival rate is less than 1%. There are no confirmed cases of babies surviving at 22 weeks or earlier, which means that children born then are less likely to live than someone who just jumped off the Empire State Building.
When It's Used:
New parents have a tendency to not hear anything that doesn't fit the "Our child will survive because he is special, we are special, and we love him" paradigm. No. Little Cletus will make it no matter what those mean old overpaid white coats tell Mommy and Daddy. Because life works like Lifetime home movies.
It's at this point you should realize that when you're surrounded by the sick and dying every day, no subject is too dark for comedy.
What It Means:
Hospitals use a series of emergency codes (Code Blue, for instance, means the patient is dying and needs immediate resuscitation). Not listed among the official codes is the Slow Code, meaning the patient is dying, and not to worry too much about it.
When It's Used:
Sometimes, a very ill, very elderly, or very hopeless patient wants the doctors to do everything they can to keep them alive. And sometimes, doctors don't want to do that: it's too much work, the patient will die anyway, or the person just isn't worth preserving.
What It Means: Chronic Biscuit Toxicity. Patient is really fat.
When It's Used:
Doctors seem to be inventing more and more of these unflattering terms as obesity becomes more chronic in the western world. You may also hear Polydipose Dysfunction, BW (beached whale) and others, all of which are sure to see plenty of usage until some enlightened future when a doctor can just say the phrase "lard ass" to a patient's face.
Here are some other, rather self-explanatory terms you probably don't want to hear in the halls outside your hospital room:
|
Cunts and Runts
The gynecology/obstetrics department. BFH
Big Fucking Head. As in, the patient has one. Brothel Sprouts
Genital warts. COPS
Chronic Old Person's Disease. Donorcycle
Motorcycle. As in, a frequent source of organ donors. CTD
Circling The Drain. Just picture the world of the living as a bath tub. |
|
If you enjoy thinking your doctors are horrible people and want to think it more, this site has an enormous list of these terms that pretty much redefine cynicism.
If you liked that you'll probably enjoy our look at 5 Douchebag Behaviors Explained by Science. And don't forget to check out Internet Party 2: An Intervention for MySpace to see which sites you shouldn't be inviting to your next intervention. You should probably also watch this video to find out why 7 Reasons the New Kid Rock Song is The Worst Ever Written.








"Brothel sprouts" made me snort my soda
ReplyI've heard FLK thrown around a few times. Funny Looking Kid.
ReplyI always liked
ReplyBUNDY = But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet
FITH = Fucked In The Head (courtesy of a friend who used to be a psych nurse)
Thought of a few more:
ReplyAss-Kick Walking: ER case coming from tavern, where wanna-be "MMA fighter" got his butt whipped by a bunch of patrons tired of his act.
FANS Nightmare: Very picky eater, often asking to see the hospital dietician to pitch a trivial beef regarding food quality/quantity. FANS stands for Food And Nutrition Services, the folks who fix meals for the patients, visitors, and staff.
Hurts So Good: payback by hospital staff on obnoxious patient, usually via using large-bore needle to give an injection.
Doc Strong: Out-of-control patient who needs to be put in restraints--usually a drunken loudmouthed bastard.
After Liberty/Leave Special:
Injection given after service-member returns with a case of VD. If the corpsman/medical specialist does NOT like the PIQ (Patient-In-Question), said injection is given in the hip--ice-cold (Most antibiotics are kept chilled). Another reason why you do not piss off the corpsmen/medical specialists, especially BEFORE payday/weekend liberty.
FYI: Dad served 24 years in the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman, retired as a Command Master Chief at Lemoore Naval Hospital. My ex-wife was a medical specialist in the Army, served in the first Persian Gulf War and in Grenada. Left the Army as a sergeant E-5.
--RKJ
I'm a paramedic in the Los Angeles area, and a very commonly used one is LHP; Larry H. Parker syndrome, describing anyone that was in a car accident and is complaining about "their neck, their back, their neck and their back", but really all they're thinking about is getting their $2.1M.
ReplyTry GOMER (Get Out Of MY Emergency Room), Adam-Henry (AssHole), DDW (Dead Douche Walking), Code Black (Dead On Arrival), Frequent Flyer (Person who uses the ER as a community clinic), Sprinter Smash (patient whose health problems make them one step from either a 5150 or the morgue--named for our light-rail service called The Sprinter), and Smoke-Head (person addicted to tobacco so badly as to violate the hospital's "No Smoing Anywhere" policy.
ReplyEvery hospital has their terms--and Boy Howdy, do many of the patients deserve what they get!
--RKJ
I USED TO WORK WITH DOCS, AND YEAH, THE MED FIELD IS CYNICAL AS HELL. IM JUST UPSET THAT IM NOW A CBT. WELL, THEY'LL HAVE SOMETHING TO b***h ABOUT IF I EVER GO IN HOSPITAL.
ReplyI thought AMYOYO was for situations where patients declined treatment or openly defied given instructions, ex. The people who want to try alternate medicine instead of chemo, or who have family smuggle a dozen donuts into their room the day after a triple bypass. "In spite of my best efforts, you insist on dying. Alright m**********r, you're on your own."
ReplyI thought AMYOYO was for situations where patients declined treatment or openly defied given instructions, ex. The people who want to try alternate medicine instead of chemo, or who have family smuggle a dozen donuts into their room the day after a triple bypass. "In spite of my best efforts, you insist on dying. Alright m**********r, you're on your own."
ReplyI am an EMT for a volunteer fire department and was for a paid service for two shifts. Shift one was training day. Shift two- One, punched in face at 530 am. Two was puked on by a person with an upper GI bleed at 940. Then had s**t thrown at me like i was the target of a monkey road rage at 1030.... By 1045 i was at a bar drinking
ReplyMeh, everyone who deals with people needs to have terms like this. People tend to be, stupid at best.
ReplyYou should hear the morons I deal with in customer service. People who think they should get an order for free cause they didnt answer the phone for us/the driver which caused it to be late, or cause a 60 cent item didnt arrive with it and they think the TIME guarantee covers the contents of the order (they always say its the principle) Or people who call me a moron cause I said I cant do what they want cause Im not allowed, yet they ask again knowing Im not allowed to do it.
They really don't like old people, until the become one.
ReplyMy mom, an RN, taught me a different one for motorcyclists. Whenever I see a motorcyclist without a helmet, the first word that comes to mind is "organ donor".
ReplyMy mom, also an RN, adds future to it.
I'm surprised my favorite from my ER rotation isn't here. When a COPS is admitted from a retirement home suffering from FOS (Full of S**T) otherwise known as a fecal impaction.
ReplyI think that people just expect anyone in the healthcare industry to be almost Jesus like and somebody stated below to raise the dead these terms may seem unprofessional and they are is they are if they are used around a patient but lets face it when you are dealing with the dead and dying everyday you need to find ways to cope. This is coming from somebody with no medical experience.
ReplyExact same thing here; no medical experience and in 100% agreement. A lot of these look like simple situations of calling a spade a spade. Even an episode of freaking Scrubs illustrates this, when Turk and Carla get kicked out of a funeral in the episode My Big Brother after Turk goes on a sensitivity mission. Hint: that doesn't work out very well for him. Considering it's a fact that Scrubs is infinitely more realistic than House or (vomit) Grey's, told to me by actual medical professionals, it puts things into perspective. People need to keep in mind these are done out of respect for the patient, who doesn't know what these acronyms mean.
i work in a doctor's office and believe me we talk SO MUCH s**t about our patients. we may not put it in their charts but these things and more are tossed around the office on a daily basis.
Replyyou forgot to mention that this is limited in the US.
ReplyIt's not.
As a medical biller-and-coder in training, I find these horrific...and amusing. Oh, God. -headdesk-
Replywent onto hospital not long ago with intense abdominal pain that was later diagnosed as apendicitus, and i was in and out in just over 12 hours (thank you socalised health care!) and im bloody glad none of these came up on my chart!!!
ReplyIn the military, the 68W are taught (off the book) about an MPH diagnosis, which stands for "My p***y hurts". Don't get the wrong idea, it's a VERY serious condition amongst individuals who have to run in the morning for PT. The first indication is an answer related to anything cardio when asked what PT was that morning.
Reply