Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Thirteen bits of medical slang: a quiz
It’s bound to happen. Someone will drift in here from my medical website and assume that I embody all the nastiness contained below, not stopping to realize that I didn’t invent this jargon. With a few exceptions, I don’t even use this jargon.
What do I mean by medical jargon? Not CHF or ASD or IVDA — that stuff is boring. No, I mean the good stuff. Here’s an example from Wikipedia:
Throckmorton sign (USA), also known as the John Thomas sign (UK) – n. used to describe a penis that is visible on xray; tradition dictates that the side that the penis points to will have an abnormal finding.
But what will I do about the folks who breeze in from doctorhoffman.com, unfamiliar with my sense of humor? I know what to do. I’ll confuse them with a flickr photo of a naughty nurse. From Queenie VonSugarPants’ photostream (love the name, Queenie):
On with the quiz! I’ll post the answers tomorrow, so write down your responses and check back later.
1. GOMER stands for . . .
A. Got one more X-ray: a radiologist who won’t leave you alone.
B. Give old me a rest: a chronically kvetching medical intern
C. Get out of my emergency room: a patient you dread seeing at the triage desk.
D. Guy/gal only merits exam and Rx: typically an old, lonely patient who comes in to talk, but won’t leave without a prescription.
E. Gives our medical examiner reason (to live): victim of a homicide.
2. Turfed
A. is a good thing. The patient is no longer my responsibility.
B. is a deep scrape — like when a golfer’s swing kicks up more than just the ball.
C. is a bad thing. Not another malpractice suit!
D. is when your attending physician comes in, outfitted with a new toupee.
E. refers to shaved genitals in a patient of either sex.
3. Squirrel
A. An attractive patient (‘squirrel,’ because you imagine he/she has a cute furry tail).
B. A medical student or intern who conceals important information about a patient, in order to look good in front of the attending physician.
C. A patient who is nuts.
D. A twitchy medical student whom you’re sure must be on drugs.
E. A patient with an agenda he does not share with you.
4. You overhear your mother’s doctors. One says to the other, “She’s circling the drain, all right.” The second one says, “Yup. Better go hang crepe.” From this you gather
A. At long last, you’re about to come into your inheritance.
B. Damn it. The old bat has dodged another bullet.
C. She’s threatening to leave the hospital against medical advice.
D. You’d best say hello to your new stepfather!
E. She’s making their lives hell. And you thought she only did that to you.
5. Looking over your doctor’s shoulder, you see he has written the word supratentorial on your chart. Your doctor thinks you’re
A. Nuts.
B. Penniless.
C. Smelly.
D. Attractive.
E. Incurable.
6. You failed the wallet biopsy. What happens next?
A. A shadowy police force made up of med school dropouts throws you into debtor’s prison.
B. Hope you like washing dishes in the hospital cafeteria.
C. If hospital administration thinks they can get away with it, expect an ambulance ride to the county hospital.
D. A creepy little man wearing pince-nez glasses and a threadbare tweed suit asks you how you feel about antemortem organ donation.
E. Amputate the whole bank account.
7. One San Antonio Unit =
A. 3 degrees Fahrenheit above normal body temperature.
B. 250 lbs.
C. Six inches.
D. 30 minutes (time you have to wait past your scheduled appointment).
5. 2000 calories.
8. How do you treat FOS?
A. Tylenol.
B. Nitroglycerine.
C. A strong antihypertensive.
D. Xanax or Zoloft.
E. A one liter enema.
9. What sort of specialist is a flea?
A. Urologist.
B. Psychiatrist.
C. Podiatrist.
D. Internist.
E. ER doc.
10. Your patient just boxed. Now you have to
A. Prepare for a deposition.
B. Sign the death certificate.
C. Write him a thank you card for the lovely box of nuts and chews.
D. Send him to collections.
E. Explain to the State’s Medical Ethics Board how you got her pregnant.
11. You’ve been bagged. Now, you . . .
A. Depends. What were your last wishes?
B. Contact a good malpractice lawyer.
C. Prepare a delicious revenge. That’ll be the last time Dr. Johnson bags you!
D. Wipe off the vomit. You hate it when that happens.
E. Spray the room. Mrs. Smith has been eating brussels sprouts again.
12. Speaking of bags, a dirtbag
A. needs a hot bath, a job, and three square meals a day.
B. needs to be removed at once. Call the OR and book an emergency case.
C. should be handed over to Lost and Found. I’ll be damned if I look inside that thing.
D. can be a fun experience. Remember to wear a condom!
E. should be impeached ASAP.
13. An FLK with GLM
A. is acceptable. Competence is more important than bedside manner, after all.
B. is acceptable, provided the GLM is truly GL.
C. is unacceptable. The job just doesn’t pay well enough to be K’d by an FL.
D. is unacceptable. Last time a GLM FLK’d you, you smelled like sulfur for days.
E. would make your day. Your week. Your year. You’ve heard about patients like this, but you never imagined one would walk into your office.
You know the drill. Leave a comment and I’ll give you the linky lurve — that’s the stuff you don’t need penicillin to cure.
Corn Dog battles the Automatron
Protected Static does Taco Loco. Send me some of them tortas asada 😉
Petunia Happenstance tours Canada, ay?
Since I’m on dial-up, I have no idea what Lyvvie’s talking about
Speaking of San Antonio, noxcat takes a trip
Just what we needed: Kate’s romance manuscript drinking game
Spawn of Satan posts some gnarly tonsils
D.
I meant to point out that professional jargon reveals a great deal about the psychology of its practitioners, but I think that will be obvious when you find out the answers. As I’ve said a million times here, doctors are a poorly socialized bunch.
This was one of the harder quizes. I guess I don’t know the slang too well. I like the Flea term. I think I’ll use it next time I see one of those guys and see if they appreciate it.
Ooh, that was tough. And a time-suck, as I found myself pulled deeper into medical slang sites. [shakes fist] Damn you, Hoffman!
1) Sha-ZAM!
2) In Aussie-speak, means “thrown out”
3) Secret: ?
4) “Beam me up, Scottie. She’s sucking mud again.”
5) My doctor’s having his little joke. Ha ha.
6) A term that confirms everything you ever suspected about the medical profession.
7) One cell?
8) Just like anyone else, of course.
9) A leapologist? Or Dogologist.
10) You’re in the brain injury or nose reconstruction unit?
11) Bagged=Slang: means insulted.
12) Can’t beat E. Even if wrong.
13) Is incomprehensible.
When are we to see the answers??? and is number 7 supposed to have a 5?? I chose 5 and was confused why I did.
I’ve not heard a lot of these terms on ER so I’m thinking they’re not doing their research properly.
Well, I’ve heard ‘turfed’ on ER. 🙂 And the one about hanging crepe is a gimmie if you know your history. 🙂
Darn, this was hard, lol.
A E C A C C D C D A E(of course!) C.
What’s funny is getting it wrong….
aren’t they all death? practically? Where are the answers?
gimme linky love and sometime today I’ll do the same for you–as soon as I remember I promised.
Here ya go.
1. C: Get out of my emergency room — as popularized by the book House of God.
2. A: Typically, transferred to another doctor’s care because the patient’s problem lies outside your specialty.
3. E: Most squirrels have a lawsuit pending. There’s an old adage that such a patient will not become well until his case settles.
4. A: If you think about it, it’s obvious, isn’t it? True story: in training, one of my attendings (a guy for whom I have a ton of respect) used this expression when talking to his father about his mother’s condition. Only afterwards did he realize what a truly loathesome metaphor this is. I think his dad’s expression made an impression on him.
5. A: Supratentorial literally means, “Above the tentorium cerebelli,” a membrane above the cerebellum. Translation, it’s all in your head.
6. C: You don’t have the money or proper health insurance. It’s getting much more difficult for hospitals to get away with this BS, but I recently heard about a case of patient dumping in the LA area — so, yeah, it’s still happening.
7. B: Not long ago, IIRC, San Antonio was ranked as the second most obese city in the nation, after St. Louis. The expression proves that some docs are as snotty about overweight people as everyone else in the country.
8. E. FOS = full of stool (or that other S word).
9. D, because they crawl all over the body.
10. B, although depending upon the circumstances of death, A may be valid, too. I’ve never heard the related expression (listed in the Wikipedia entry on medical slang), “Pine Box To Bedside,” but I don’t doubt that some folks use it. Incidentally, a lot of this slang is far more common among doctors in training than doctors out of training. Has to do with the stress of having to deal with death (and a lot of it) for the first time.
11. C. “Bagged” means another doc has dumped his work on you, or left you with a mess to clean up (metaphorically speaking).
12. A. Just another name for a bum. Obviously, we go into medicine because we’re so compassionate.
13. B. “Funny Looking Kid with Great Looking Mom.” Believe it or not, this has medical significance; the parallel expression (Funny Looking Kid with Funny Looking Mom) suggests a genetic condition, while FLK with GLM suggests something that’s not genetic. Or at least, you had better get a look at the dad!
Hope y’all had fun. Now I need to start working on the linky lurve (between patients, naturally!)
Thursday Thirteen: Great Gift Ideas for Mother’s Day…
I personally LOVE to get personalized gifts gifts. They make me feel special. It’s not the price of the gift that counts, but the sincerity of the giver. Love is something money can’t buy. An expensive gift can be meaningless if it doesn&…
Missed 2. That’s about par. I’m happy.
Great!
Oh, yeah . . . I should have mentioned, “E” is also an acceptable answer for #12 🙂
How ’bout some tongue?
Wait. That came out wrong.
Oops! Must link you. The surprising one is the FLK with GLM. Interesting.
Mmmmmm. Tongue. The food that tastes you back.
Yes, Kate, MUST LINK ME! 🙂
Oh be still my beating heart!! Loved this quiz. Only missed two.
As a pediatrician, I was disappointed that Captain Kangaroo didn’t make the list. (This *so* summs up a few of my attendings from residency….) Also would have liked to see “Failed the PVC challenge…” “FTD” or “Transfer to the ECU” — brings back not such fond memories of NICU call….
‘Kay, Kid Doc, I hope you come back and fill us in on some of these. Inquiring minds, yatta yatta 🙂
how could you forget the DBI and the good ol’ “Q” face? If ur gunna quiz us about hospital lexicon, you can’t forget the classics
Guess some acronyms are specialty specific, or maybe more regional than others:
Captain Kangaroo = Head of the Pediatrics team, at least in my experience, refers to the attending with the worst haircut, toupee, etc…
“Failed the PVC challenge” = usually referred to extremely preterm infants who were either being intubated (PVC, i.e. plastic ET tube) or trial extubated, depending on circumstances. Then there were the babies who would try to kill themselves and yank their ET tubes out at 3am….
“FTD” = “Fixin’ to Die”
“Transfer to the ECU” ECU = Eternal Care Unit, i.e. yet another reference to death….
LOL, that Captain Kangaroo term is waaaaay too funny
Wasn’t familiar with DBI. From Answers.com:
Good one. Q-face, if I guess correctly, must be an unconscious person with his tongue sticking out?
Oh, and I forgot Code Brown! At least I remembered to use it in my romance novel.
From that Answers.Com page, I love VD: “Veak and Dizzy,” an old patient who “just doesn’t feel right.” Describes about 10% of my practice.
Ah. Here we go. Again, from Answers.com:
How fun was that?? Am I too late for a dose of linkylurve?? LOL I did horribly!! Just barely over 50% and wouldn’t have made that if you hadn’t added the comment that “E” was also acceptable for #12. What is very odd, is that with the exception of lucky 13, I got all the even #ed questions correct, and the odd #ed ones wrong. I bet you did that on purpose. Made the evens easy so even I coyl get a few right!!! Excellent fun, though.