Doing a Hasselhoff…new medical slang.
Influenced by popular culture (films, television, and the internet), the medical profession has been busy creating new and inventive ways of describing their colleagues and patients. So if you’re looking for some new words and terms to add to your medical vocabulary, check out the Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal.
Here’s a partial list from their article on medical slang.
- Hasselhoff - a patient presenting to accident and emergency with an injury with a bizarre explanation. (After the former Baywatch actor David Hasselhoff, who suffered a freak injury when he hit his head on a chandelier while shaving. The broken glass severed four tendons as well as an artery in his right arm, which required immediate surgery.)
- Fonzie – A middle grade doctor seemingly unflappable in any medical emergency. Based on the character Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli from the American sitcom Happy Days.
- Father Jack – The confused, usually elderly patient whose constant high pitched verbal ejaculation and attempts to get out of bed are responsible for insomnia on wards. (From a character in the [British] television series Father Ted, who would sit in the corner of a room shouting “Drink,” “Feck,” “Arse,” etc.
- Jack Bauer – A doctor still up and working after 24 hours on the job – now something of a rarity but will be recognized by older clinicians.
- Blamestorming - A session of mutual recrimination during which a multidisciplinary team attempts to apportion blame for some particularly egregious error.
- 404 moment - the point in a ward round when – despite all efforts to look through the notes or access electronic systems – a particular result cannot be located. (From the world wide web error message “404 document not found.”)
The full list can be found here.
And if you want to learn more medical slang, head over to this wikipedia article.
I love it. As a nurse, I can identify with many of these behaviours from both the staff and the patients.
Thanks for the smile!
I don’t have a medical background, but these cracked me up! I can only imagine what’s been discussed about me after going to the doctor’s! ha ha ha
Ain’t creativity great.
Medical slang is so necessary in a high stressed and emotional environment. I’d never dream of using any of these terms in front of (or to) any of my patients but sometimes you need to have a way of letting off steam and having a good laugh.
Reminds me of a book I read a long time ago.
“The House of God” The classic novel of Life and Death in an American hospital.
It gave us such gems as;
GOMER (Get Out of My ER) or LOLNAD (Little Old Lady No Apparent Distress), Turf, Bounce, etc.
Worth a look.
http://www.amazon.com/House-God-Classic-American-Hospital/dp/0440133688
Sounds like an interesting read. I’d forgotten about terms like GOMER…although there is some debate as whether that is the original meaning of the acronym GOMER…here’s an interesting article about the debate Folk Etymology: Gomer (Medical Slang) -arguing that GOMER “…is based on the character of Gomer Pyle and was only later folk etymologized to mean “Get Out of My Emergency Room.”
Still it works well as medical slang…especially for some of the characters that come to be treated in ER.
There is a huge amount of medical slang at http://www.messybeast.com/dragonqueen/medical-acronyms.htm
Much of the “new” slang is corporate jargon, not medical at all!
Thanks for the link…looks like someone has gone to a lot of time and trouble to collect all that medical slang…there’s quite a few on that list I’ve never heard of. I think a lot of medical slang is also very localized – within a region or country.
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