Monday, October 6, 2014

Medical Slang

Medicine has its own irreverent slang.  Here's a sampling of a few between A and M.

Acute Lead Poisoning - Gunshot wound
AGA - Acute Gravity Attack - Falling over
AHF - Acute Hissy Fit
Angel lust - a male corpse with an erection (not uncommon). Is also sometimes used to mean death that occurred during intercourse.
AOB - Alcohol On Board

ART - Assuming/Approaching Room Temperature - Dead
Baby catcher - obstetrician
Bobbing for apples - unblocking a badly constipated patient with one's finger
BOHICA - Bend Over, Here It Comes Again
Bone Break Need Fix - derogatory term for Orthopedics

Boneheads - orthopedics
Bordeaux - blood in urine
Bottle return - removing a bottle lodge in the anus
Bugs in the rug - pubic lice
Bull in the ring - blockage in the large intestine

Code Yellow - urinary incontinence emergency
Coffee and a Newspaper - Patient is Constipated (i.e. long time sitting on toilet with drink and reading matter)
Coffin Dodger - survived against expectations, or a very old person
CRS - Can't remember s**t.
Dirtball - patient who enters the emergency room filthy and smelling badly

Discharged downstairs - transferred to the morgue
FLK - funny looking kid (suggests rural inbreeding)
Frequent flyer - A person who makes repeated visits to the E.R., so he or she is known by name
Grape Sign - grapes at a bedside, denotes patient has a supportive family and might be candidate for early discharge
Grapes - hemorrhoids

Hypoxanaxemia - patient with anxiety symptoms (Xanax deficiency)
Icing on the Cake - lethal tumor discovered in the X-rays of a heart attack victim.
Last Flea To Jump Off A Dead Dog - Oncologists (sometimes other disciplines) who seem unable to let people die with diginity
Laying Crepe - dismal prognosis (i.e. prepare the coffin)
LDF - Lying Down Fit


Leave 'Em Dead - Levofed (aka norepinephrine) , the drug given to cardiac patients to prop up their blood pressure until they die in the ambulance
Leeches - those who take blood samples, e.g. lab techs
Lerner/Bernstein Fracture - the injury suffered by a patient who is intent on suing someone over his trip or fall (Lerner/Bernstein are a pair of ambulance-chasing lawyers in one region).
LFTWM - Looking for 3 Wise Men (applied to young pregnant females who deny having had intercourse)
LGFD - looks good from door (but not closely examined, possibly an obnoxious patient)


LGFTC - looks good from the corridor (but not closely examined)
MARPs - Mind Altering Recreational Pharmaceuticals
Marriageable Monster - young female patient who has successfully undergone major plastic surgery.
Masochist - Trauma surgeon; Sadomasochist - Neurosurgeon
Matern-a-taxi - when a pregnant woman calls an ambulance because the contractions are every 2 minutes, but she doesn't have a single contraction during a 30 minute journey to hospital

 


10 comments:

Duckbutt said...

Great slang, dark humor probably related to the stressful occupation.

Meredith said...

I like acute hissy fit!

MarkD60 said...

great slang, dark humor, what Duckbutt said.
Hope that I die with an erection, I'll need it in heaven!

Linda Kay said...

So many of these are toooo funny! My daughter is a nurse, and she will frequently comment with a phrase I've never heard before. Of course I can't remember them to add to your list. Hissy fit is funny. and Acute Gravity attack. I familiar with a few frequent fliers.

Mike said...

The older you get the more code yellows become relevant. Next time I'm rushing to the bathroom I may holler that out.

Bilbo said...

I always enjoy hearing the slang terms of different occupations. Thanks!

Cloudia said...

Thanks professor!

Banana Oil said...

Code brown?

Anonymous said...

LFTWM is very clever.

bakku-shan said...

CRS is a very useful concept.