UCEM Medical Acronym Dictionary
The Utopian College of Emergency for Medicine has years of experience in the use of TLA’s, obfuscating latinification and ambiguous ausenclature. With this level of self-proclaimed expertise, UCEM has delegated a working group from the Department Advocating Medical Acronyms (DAMA) to assist the common people of the general public in comprehending medical phraseologyIt is intended that this hardly comprehensive, nor accurate collection of acronyms, phrases and astute observations will assist those not of medically sound mind to gain a pseudo-scientific insight into the inner sanctum of the glorified hallows of medical parlance. [Sir Hubert]
As a disclaimer, UCEM would like to point out that this collection is neither definitive, nor an accurate representation of Utopian practices or practitioners. Any offence taken should be pointed squarely at the field of medicine and not the DAMA or the Utopian division for the Further Development of Acronyms (FDA)
There are currently over 700 terms in the dictionary. The Dictionary table has a search function which allows rapid interrogation of the dictionary database.
| Term/Acronym | Definition |
|---|---|
| 404 moment | Not Found. The point in a doctor's ward round when medical records cannot be located. Comes from HTTP 404 error "Not Found". |
| 4F | Fair, fat, female and forty OR fat, forty-ish, flatulent female (both mean abdominal pain patient who is candidate for gall bladder disease) |
| 5-H-I-T | Faeces. Polite medical term for sh!t |
| 6PFP | 6-pack and a fishing pole. Example: "this patient doesn't need chemo, he needs 6PFP." - Usually referring to an end-stage patient who should go die somewhere else. |
| Acades vulgaris | Medical students |
| ACDC | Medicolegally sound - Arse covered, doctor called |
| Acopic/Acopia | Unable to cope. Describes a patient with no acute medical problem, but significant social problems, who it is impossible to 'turf' out of the ED and requires admission (see Patients Without Discernible Pathology (PDWP)) |
| Acronymophilia | Affliction characterized by excessive use of acronyms. Se also TLAitis |
| Acute Prozac Deficiency | Depression |
| Adminosphere | Administration Department. An area where hospital managers work, reckoned to be "another planet" |
| Adminostrivia | The flurry of pointless emails and paperwork that emanate from the adminosphere. |
| AGA | Acute Gravity Attack (fell over) |
| AGMI | Ain't Gonna Make It |
| Agnostication | Term used to describe the usually vain attempt to answer the question: "How long have I got, doc?" - see also Prognostication |
| AHF | Acute Hissy Fit |
| Air biscuit | A stool that floats |
| Airwolf | Air-ambulance After a popular US TV series |
| Albatross | Chronically ill patient who will remain with a doctor until one or other of them expire |
| Angel Lust | A death erection. |
| AOA | Adult onset anencephaly (to be without a brain) |
| Appy | Appendix. A person's appendix or a patient with appendicitis |
| APTFRAN | Apply Pillow To Face, Repeat As Necessary (for annoying patient) |
| Arsenic in antifreeze | Melarsoprol (IV sleeping sickness drug) is exactly this! |
| Ash cash | Assuming Room Temperature (dying) |
| Ash point | Where you collect your ash cash from |
| Ass Grapes | Badly thrombosed or strangulated haemorrhoids |
| Assmosis | Promotion by "kissing ass" |
| Assuming the Q Position | Deteriorating or dying with tongue hanging out |
| AST | Assuming Seasonal Temperature (dead) |
| Asynapsing neuritis | See also LOBNH |
| ATS | Acute Thespian Syndrome (the patient is a malingerer) |
| Aunt Minnie lesion | Once seen, never forgotten, like Aunt Minnie at the Fineberg wedding |
| AWTB/AWTF | Away With The Birds/Away With The Fairies; a patient who is totally confused |
| B-52 | Combined 5mg of haloperidol IV + 2mg of midazolam IV |
| Baby Catcher | Obstetrician |
| Babygram | Entire body X-ray you often get when taking an X ray of a neonate |
| Bagged and Tagged (B&T) | Body ready for dispatch to morgue |
| Bagging | Manually helping a patient breathe using an Ambu bag attached to a mask that covers the face |
| Bagrinhos | Interns (Brazil) ("bullheads" - type of fish that gets in the way of real fishing) |
| Banana | Patient with jaundice |
| Basement admission | Will end up in hospital morgue (located in the hospital basement) |
| Bash cash | Payment received by registrars in the UK for completing medical reports on patients who have allegedly been assaulted |
| BBA | (baby) Born before arrival |
| BBCS | Bumps, Bruises, Cuts and Scrapes (i.e. no serious injuries) |
| BBL Sign (Belly-button Lint Sign) | Male, middle-aged, overweight and hairy (an umbilicus that looks like the lint [fluff] trap in a tumble dryer is most common in overweight, hairy, older men). Known as Belly-button Fluff in Britain. |
| Beached Whale | A patient who is unable to get out of bed |
| Benny | Patient on benefit (welfare payments) |
| Betty | Patient with diabetes |
| BFH | Big f!cking head. Usually hydrocephalus, often used to describe an FLK as in "Go examine the FLK with the BFH." |
| BFH | Brat From Hell (usually accompanied by PFH - Parent(s) from Hell) |
| Bilateral Samsonite Syndrome | Patient admitted with both their bags packed in preparation |
| BIT | Burp in transit (gas seen in the stomach on an abdominal film) |
| Black cloud | Doctor who attracts difficult or prolonged cases or an unusually high number of code blues calls |
| Blade | Surgeon: dashing, bold, arrogant and often wrong, but never in doubt |
| Blamestorming | Apportionment of blame after the wrong leg or kidney is removed or some other particularly egregious foul-up |
| Bleep dream | Waking in the belief that the bleep has gone off |
| Blinky the Fish | Radiologist (The 3-eyed, mutant goldfish from The Simpsons is the mascot of many radiology depts). |
| Blood Sucker | Practitioners who take blood samples, such as laboratory technicians and Phlebotomists - see also Leeches, Vampires |
| Blood-Brain Barrier | Surgical drapes |
| Blown Mind | Gunshot wound (GSW) to the head. |
| Blue Bloater | Patient with chronic bronchitis |
| Blue Pipe | Vein (as opposed to 'red pipe' or artery) |
| BMT | Bowel-Movement Taco (faecal matter trapped in female genitalia) |
| BMW | Bitch Moan & Whine |
| Bobbing for apples | Manual disimpaction. Unblocking a badly constipated patient with one's finger |
| BOHICA | Bend Over, Here It Comes Again |
| Bonehead | Orthopedic Surgeon |
| Boogie or Goober | Tumour. A Roasted Goober is a tumour after intensive cobalt treatment; a Healthy Goober is a dead tumour patient. |
| Bordeaux | Bloodstained urine (macroscopic hematuria) |
| Bottle return | Removing a bottle lodged in the anal canal |
| Bounce | The art of skillfully avoiding admitting a patient by finding a symptom which allows referral to another Speciality - alternative to TURF |
| Bounceback | Patient who returns to the emergency department with the same complaints shortly after being released |
| Brain Fry | Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) for depression |
| Bronze John's Law | (paediatrics) If the weight of the records exceeds the weight of the child, the prognosis is grim |
| Brothel Sprouts | Genital warts |
| Brothelizer test | Microbiology test (on swab or sample) requested by the Genito-Urinary Clinic or STD clinic to check for sexually transmitted diseases. A positive test result means the patient has "failed the brothelizer test". |
| Brown trout | A stool that won't float, as opposed to an 'air biscuit' which does. |
| Buff | To be sure all details regarding a patient's care are attended to so that discharge or transfer to another service or facility will proceed smoothly and no excuses or objections can be raised to prevent the discharge or transfer. For example "Be sure to buff the guy in 702 before we send him to the nursing home." It can also mean that you make up lab and other results, even if you haven't done them, to make yourself look good on rounds. |
| Bungee jumper | A patient who pulls on his catheter tube |
| Bunny Boiler | (Psych) dangerously obsessive or unbalance woman (based on film "Fatal Attraction") |
| Burger | Sunburned patient with ruptured blisters |
| Bury the Hatchet | Accidentally leaving a surgical instrument inside a patient |
| BVA | Breathing Valuable Air |
| BWCO | Baby Won't Come Out (needs Caesarian) |
| C/C | "Cancel Christmas" (dead) |
| C&T Ward | Coma ward - "cabbages and turnips/ tomatoes" |
| Cabbage | Heart bypass i.e. CABG (Coronary Artery Bypass Graft) |
| Calcified Penisitis Morbidium | Male patient whose ailment is due to excessive or unprotected sex |
| Call Button Jockey/Buzzer Junkie | patient that uses call button all night long for no good reason. |
| Callbellectomy | minor operation, sadly not permitted, to remove over-used call bell from patient's hand/reach! |
| Captain Kangaroo | Head of a paediatrics department |
| Cast Iron Bum/Butt Syndrome | When the needle goes into the buttocks straight, but comes out curved |
| Category 6 Patient | Triage is Cat 1 (major) to Cat 5 (minor) so Cat 6 means a timewaster |
| CC and BCC | Complaint Corner, a patient that complains about everything; BCC is one that behaves nicely to medical staff and complains behind their backs (from business acronyms for carbon copy and blind carbon copy) |
| Celestial discharge | Death |
| Ceph-du-jour | The latest cephalosporin that everyone is using to treat infections. |
| Champagne tap | A bloodless sample from a lumbar puncture. Traditionally awarded a bottle of champagne by the supervising consultant. |
| Chandelier sign | Used to describe a patient who experiences extreme pain during a physical exam and thus "jumps up to the chandelier." Classically used to describe cervical motion tenderness from a pelvic inflammation. |
| CHAOS | Chronic Hurts All Over Syndrome (PTSD/Fibromyalgia, etc.) |
| Chart Biopsy | Check chart for other depts' plans on the patient |
| Chart Dehiscence | Drop patient chart and everything falls out. |
| Chartomegaly | Patient attends so frequently s/he has a large (and growing) chart |
| Cheese and Onion | The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine, because of its green and yellow cover. Also known as the 'Bible' |
| Chocolate Hostage | Constipated |
| Choly / Chole | Patient with cholecystitis (inflammation of the gallbladder) or cholecystectomy patient. |
| Chrome Induced Ischaemia | Patient that develops inexplicable chest pains when arrested and handcuffed |
| Chronic Burger/Biscuit Toxicity | Obesity |
| Chronic Slapping Deficiency | Annoying/unruly family members hitting nurse's call button every 5 minutes with minor requests/inane questions or for fun |
| CKS | Cute kid syndrome |
| Clip and Strip | Remove staples and adhesive sutures |
| CLL | Chronic low life |
| CLM | Career limiting move |
| CNS-QNS | Central Nervous System - Quantity Not Sufficient |
| Cockroach Factor | A patient's ability to survive trauma or serious treatment is inversely proportional to his contribution to society (see TTI). |
| Code 0 | (Ambulance) Time-waster/tax-waster (genuine codes are Code 1 [non-serious] to Code 4 [emergency]) |
| Code Azure | Message to other medics to do nothing extraordinary to save a very ill patient who will die shortly no matter what is done |
| Code Brown | a faecal incontinence emergency. Often used by nurses and medical technicians requesting help cleaning up an unexpected bowel movement. |
| Code Brown | In Australia, the code used for a coffee break. |
| Code Surfer | Medic straddling the patient on trolly (gurney) performing chest compressions while patient is being transported |
| Code Yellow | A patient who has lost control of his or her bladder |
| Coffee and a Newspaper | Patient is Constipated (i.e. long time sitting on toilet with drink and reading matter) |
| Coffin dodger | Descriptive of a (usually elderly) patient who persists in staying alive despite all natures attempts to the contrary |
| Cold tea sign | When positive, refers to the several cups of cold tea on the bedside cabinet beside an elderly patient whom has recently "passed on" |
| COPD | Chronic Old Persons Disease (unwell, no specific cause) |
| COSMONAUT | Cat Owner, Smells, Made Of Nuts And Used Tampons ("mad cat lady" with poor hygiene and body odour) |
| Crackerjack referral | |
| CRAFT | Can't Remember A F@$king Thing |
| Cranial rectosis | US: butthead (US term for idiot); UK: head-up-ass (arrogant/arrogant fool) |
| Cranial-Rectal Insertion or Cranial-Rectal Inversion | Head-up-ass syndrome |
| Cranio-faecal Syndrome | S**t for brains |
| CRAP Score | Cynical Real Alternative Pain Score - an alternative method of scoring pain |
| Creepers | Geriatrics using walkers and wheelchairs |
| Crispy critter | Severe burns victim |
| CROACC | Cannot Rule Out Anything, Correlate Clinically (Radiology) |
| Crop Rotation | Ambulance shuttle service from nursing home to surgery and back again |
| Crumbly | Derogatory term for an elderly patient |
| Crump | When a patient tries to die on the medical practitioner. Usage: "My patient tried to crump on me repeatedly throughout the night" |
| CTD | "Circling The Drain" or "Certain To Die" |
| Cut and Paste | To open a patient, discover that there is no hope, and immediately sew him up (or almost immediately - sometimes young surgeons practice surgical techniques for a while). |
| CYA | Cover your arse |
| CYA | Cover Your Ass; unnecessary procedure/prescription done to avoid being sued |
| D&D | Death & Donuts. Mortality and morbidity conferences where doctors and other health-care professionals discuss mistakes and patient deaths (sometimes also called Morbidity and Mortality Meeting (M &M)) |
| D&D | Divorced and Desperate (middle aged female who visits doctor weekly just for male attention) |
| D&D | Death and Donuts (night shift) |
| Dagenham | "Three Stops Beyond Barking": severely disturbed/mad (based on British train station names) |
| Dance | The process of tying a surgical gown behind the proceduralist's back; involves a 180-degree spin. "Shall we dance?" |
| Dandruff on wheels | Scabies or other transmissible flaky skin condition |
| 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. |
| Dementors | Staff on the geriatric ward |
| DENTIST | Doesn't Even Need Treatment - It's Sorted, Truly |
| Departure lounge | Geriatric ward |
| Dermaholiday | Dermatology, considered to be a less-busy department. See rheumaholiday |
| DFKDFC | Don't f@$king know, don't f@$king care. A diagnosis often applied to a surgery's most regular visitors. Most often treated with a low-dosage course of Amoxycillin. |
| DFO | Done Fell Out. Died. DFO is used when the death is not witnessed. "Carol Kirby DFOd before we got here." Also refers to syncope (fainting) in the Southern US. |
| DIC | Death Is Coming, Death In Cage - also an acronym for Disseminated intravascular coagulation |
| DIFFC | Ropped In For Friendly Chat (i.e. no medical problem) |
| Digging for Worms | Varicose vein surgery |
| DILF | Doctor I'd Like to F*** (Fornicate with): Nursing slang for good-looking doctor |
| Disappearing Penis Syndrome | The usual reaction of the male organ in response to insertion of catheter or endoscope; also experienced by the newly obese |
| Discharged downstairs | Transferred to the morgue |
| Disco biscuits | Refers to the nightclub drug ecstasy. Usage: "The man in cubicle three looks like he's taken one too many disco biscuit". |
| DMFNFL | Dumb mother f@$ker, not fit to live |
| DNA | Deoxyribonucleic acid or, more usually, did not attend |
| DOA | Dead on arrival |
| Doc in a Box | A small health-care center, usually with high staff turnover |
| Doc till you drop | Reference to the previous onerous hours worked by house officers |
| 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) |
| Donut of death | CT scanner |
| Doorknob Rounds | The entire presentation takes place in 5 seconds while the consultant's hand never leaves the doorknob to the entrance of the patient's room (US hospitals have small single occupancy rooms) |
| DOTS | Dead on the spot (following an accident) |
| Double bind trial | Two orthopods looking at an electrocardiogram |
| DPP | Leave patient for the next shift to deal with ("Deixa para o PrÌ_ximo PlantÌ£o") - Brazil |
| Dr Feelgood | A doctor who is indiscriminate about prescribing drugs |
| Drinkectomy | Separating a drunk from his can of lager (performed in A&E dept) |
| Drooler | Catatonic patient. |
| Droopy Penis Syndrome | A patient wanting Viagra prescription |
| DRT | Dead Right There |
| DRTTTT | Dead Right There, There, There and There (patient dead and in multiple parts at scene of accident) |
| DSB | Drug-Seeking Behaviour (faking illness to fuel narcotic addiction) |
| DTS | Danger To Shipping (in a particularly large patient's records) |
| DUB | Damn Ugly Baby |
| Duck | Portable urinal for bedridden male hospital patients |
| Dude Factor | Survival scoring factor based on social worth. A high dude factor = an individual of questionable social worth who survives near-fatal injuries. A low dude factor = professional person who slips in the bathroom sustaining a fatal injury |
| Dump | Arranging for a patient who should probably be admitted to your service to be admitted to another service or another facility. Also used as a noun, for example "This guy was a total dump from the private hospital." |
| DWPA | Death/Dying With Paramedic Assistance |
| EDDU | eating drinking defecating urinating (but not much else) |
| EDGATWTTTF | Elevator Doesn't Go All The Way To The Top Floor (thick) |
| EFT | Eleventh Floor Transfer - in a 10 floor hospital; refers to patient who is very close to death |
| Ego Boost Units | Med students/junior doctors that follow a doctor |
| Eiffel Syndrome | (From I-fell on it) patient with a foreign object in the rectum |
| Electric lights | Urea and electrolytes proÂle |
| ELFs | Evil Little F@$kers (irritating children) |
| Embromed | (Brazil) imaginary health plan: postponement of solution through hoax. |
| EMS | Earn Money Sleeping (joke at expense of Emergency Medical Service) |
| EMT | Extraordinary Masochistic Tendencies (joke at expense of Emergency Medical Technicians) |
| Engessar | (Brazil) to orient treatment so that the patient can't complain (literally "to place in a cast"). |
| Epidemaholiday | Epidemiology, similar to dermaholiday |
| ERCP | Emergency retrograde clerking of patient, an emergency procedure before consultant rounds |
| ERNOBW | Engine Running, No One Behind the Wheel (thick) |
| ESBAM | Eat s**t and Bark At the Moon (or "not bloodly likely" in British English) |
| EstropÌ_cio | (Brazil) poor, unkempt obstetric patient ("jeopardy"). |
| Eternal care | Intensive care or mortuary |
| ETOH | Extremely Trashed or Hammered (2 derivations given: corruption of "Etho" [ethanol addict] or from "EtOH" [chemistry abbreviation for ethanol]) |
| Ex Arbor | Someone who is out of their mind; literally, Latin for "out of (their) tree" |
| Expensive scare | Intensive care |
| F.BUNDY | Refers to slowly dying patient who is Fucked, But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet. (See also TF.BUNDY) |
| Faecal Encephalopathy | Sh*t for brains |
| Fallaciopisces rufus | Red herring |
| Family Care Plan | One child gets the sniffles, whole family gets a trip to A&E |
| Fascinectomy | Long, but fascinating procedure |
| Fascinoma | An interesting medical rarity |
| Fatal medicine | Coined by Neonatal ICU, for Fetal Medicine, because of high incidence of poor prognosis neonates |
| 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 television series Father Ted, who would sit in the corner of a room shouting Drink, Feck, Arse, etc.) |
| FCBP | Fellow of the College of Bystander Physicians i.e. doctor having a look-see |
| FDSTW | Found Dead Stayed That Way |
| Feather Count | Measure of flakiness (e.g. high feather count) |
| Feed and Seed | Care for vegetative patients in "the garden" |
| Feet up general | A quiet district hospital |
| FFDID | Found face down in ditch |
| FFDIG | Found face down in gutter |
| FHHS | Female Hispanic Hysterical Syndrome (screaming and crying) |
| FICOW | A fecalith in the circle of Willis - having feces in the central communicating circulation of the brain |
| FIDO | F@$k It, Drive On (a waste of time/hoax ambulance all) |
| Fighting Darwin | Patients refusing essential treatment through stubborness or stupidity |
| File 13 | The Trashcan |
| Finger Wave | Rectal exam |
| FIRT | Failed impact resistance test - crash victim |
| Fish Filet | vaginal infection with discharge and odour |
| Fish Filet with Ketchup | vaginal infection with discharge, odour and bleeding (e.g. post-natal) |
| FITH disease | F@$ked in the head |
| FLBs | "Funky Looking Beats" found on an EKG that no one can figure out; or funny little bumps (unexplained skin lesions) |
| FLK | Funny Looking Kid. Term used for a child, usually newborn, whose appearance, while superficially normal, suggests investigation for congenital and genetic anomalies. "Funny" in this sense means "weird", not "comical". |
| FLKOFS | Funny Looking Kid, Okay For Sunderland (one of many regional variants of NFN [Normal For Norfolk]) |
| Flower sign | Fresh Ââowers (or grapes, for the grape sign) at the bedside imply |
| Fluttering Eye Syndrome | Patient faking unconsciousness |
| FMPS | Fluff My Pillow Syndrome (attention/sympathy seeker), like Call Button Jockey |
| FOALS NEIGH | F@$k Off And Let Someone Not Extremely Incompetent Get Here |
| FOB | Found on Bench |
| FODE | Falling On Deaf Ears |
| FOL,GOL,FOS | Fat Old Lady, Gone off Legs, Full Of Sh!t. An old term used to describe a confused elderly lady unable to exercise at home, now unable to move on her own and badly constipated as a result... causing Toxic Confusional State. Reversible within 10 days with regular bowel care, rehydration, good diet and physiotherapy. |
| Fonzie | A middle grade doctor seemingly unflappable in any medical emergency. Based on the character Arthur 'Fonzie' Fonzarelli from the American sitcom Happy Days. The allusion is to a conversation in the final scene of the Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction: Yolanda: You don't hurt him! - Jules: Nobody's gonna hurt anybody. We're gonna be like three little Fonzies here. And whatªs Fonzie like? Come on, Yolanda! What's Fonzie like? - Yolanda: Cool? - Jules: What? - Yolanda: He's cool. - Jules: Correctamundo! And that's what we're gonna be. We're gonna be cool. |
| FOOBA | found on ortho barely alive |
| FOOSF | Fall onto outstretched Face - usually in a drunk patient |
| FOOSH | Fall onto outstretched Hand |
| FOOT | Flat Out On Tarmac (e.g. biker gone down in full flight) |
| FORD | Found On Road Dead |
| Foreverectomy | A surgical procedure that lasts a very long time |
| FOS | Full of sh!t. A diagnosis given to a patient that is likely not telling the truth or, alternatively, has a bowel obstruction |
| Frequent Flyer | Someone who is transported to and from hospital on a routine basis (also someone who spends more time at the local hospital then most employees and is known by all staff members including Environmental Services). Also. Patient who calls ambulance multiple times usually when they could seek help in better ways. |
| Freud Squad | Psychiatry department |
| Friday construction | Like the cars, put together badly when the workers minds were on the weekend |
| Fruit Salad | group of stroke patients, all unable to take care of themselves |
| FTD | Fixin' to Die |
| FTF | Failure to Âây or failure to Ââoat, for attempted suicide victims (jumping FTF Failure to Âây or failure to Ââoat, for attempted suicide victims (jumping |
| FUBAR | Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition |
| FUBAR | F@$ked up beyond all repair |
| FUBIL | F@$k You Buddy, I'm Leaving. . The act of a doctor at a small hospital dumping a critically ill patient on larger hospital on Friday afternoon before he leaves for the weekend |
| Full McGill TJ | Haloperidol 10mg, lorazepam 2mg given through jeans (TJ) |
| Full Moon | Full or overcrowded waiting room/A&E/ER |
| FURB | Funny, Unusual, Rectal Blockage (people who use inappropriate objects as butt-plugs) |
| Galloping amputations | Gangrene spreading up a limb so more and more has to be removed in consecutive surgeries |
| Garden | Neurosurgical intensive care ward, so called because of the "vegetables" found there. |
| Gardening | Attending to patients in neurological intensive care. |
| Gas Passer | Anesthesiologist (see also Gasser, Gas Man or Gaswallah) |
| GDA | Gonna die anyway |
| Genital hurties | Genital herpes |
| Gerbilophilia | Suffered by patients who present with rodents per rectum |
| Gerifix | A combination of broad spectrum antibiotics, thiazide diuretics, and nebulised bronchodilators (with or without corticosteroids) prescribed to elderly patients admitted to UK hospitals between October and March. |
| GGF | Grandpa's (-ma's) got a fever. Shorthand for an elderly person presenting with pyrexia of unknown origin |
| Ghost | Derogatory term for med students; they are largely invisible, are absent during difficult situations, silent when asked for volunteers and stealthily evade hard work |
| GLF | Ground level fall i.e. a fall from standing, not a fall from a height. |
| GLM | Good looking mum |
| Glove up & dig in | Severe constipation, requiring manual evacuation |
| Gluteo-cubital agnosis | Doesn't know his arse from his elbow; clueless or stupid |
| Go to Ground | All out of bed or chair |
| Go to Meet Joe Black/Consult Joe Black | Die |
| GOA | Gone On Arrival (police turn up, ambulance turns up, fire brigade turns up, patient doesn't) |
| Goat Rodeo/Goat Rope | Emergency scene which goes badly (resembles a bunch of people riding or wrestling goats) |
| God's Waiting Room | Intensive care unit and/or geriatric unit |
| GOK | God only knows |
| Goldbrick | Patient who demands more attention than their (minor) condition warrants. |
| Golden ass | Affluent mother who treats the obstetrics nurses like servants |
| Golden Child | Jaundiced youngster |
| GoldÂsh stool | As in 'as rare asÛ_Û (see also Rocking Horse stool) |
| GOLP | Generalised Old Lady Pains |
| 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. A heartsink patient. |
| Gomergram | Ordering all available tests because the person is unable to explain what is wrong with them |
| Gone Camping | Patient in oxygen tent |
| Gorillacillin | A very powerful antibiotic. |
| Gorked | Unresponsive and nonverbal, either due to sedation or medical condition. |
| GOS | God's own spot (reference to tertiary/teaching hospitals) |
| Gown's Sign, positive | A patient who leaves (self-discharge ) without official discharge orders |
| GPO | Good for Parts Only |
| GRAFOB/ GRAHOB | Grim Reaper At Foot/ Head Of Bed |
| Granny dumping | Granny dumping Practice of bringing elderly patients to emergency departments for admission, usually before public holidays |
| Granny Farm | Old persons' residential home, run by a Granny Farmer |
| Grape sign | Like flower sign, grapes at the bedside imply the patient has a supportive family |
| Gravity Assisted Concrete Poisoning | Jumped/fell from height |
| Gridiron Belly | Scarred from multiple ops |
| GROLIES | Guardian Reader Of Low Intelligence in Ethnic Skirt |
| GUCCI | Genito-Urinary Clinc, Chlamydial Infection. Posh female with sexually transmitted chlamydial infection |
| Guessing tubes | Stethoscope |
| Guts and Butts | General surgery |
| HAIRY PSALMS | Haven't any idea regarding your patient send a lot more serum |
| Hallucinoma | Used when you though you saw something that wasn't really there. For instance "The mass on the MRI turned out to be a hallucinoma." |
| HALS | Hit And Left Standing. Apparently uninjured but in shock after RTA/MVA |
| Hamster sign | Swollen cheeks as seen with steroids, but also as a result of swelling postjugular line insertion |
| Handbag positive | Confused patient (usually elderly lady) lying on hospital bed clutching handbag - See also "Teddy-bear positive (psych patient) and sunglass positive (psych patient) |
| Happy feet | (US) patient having a grand mal epileptic seizure (in UK, Happy feet means smelly feet (feet which "hum" [stink]) |
| Happy Little Campers | Children in oxygen tents |
| 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. |
| Hat Trick | Trauma patient with 3 tubes into him |
| Head bonk | Describing an otherwise uninjured patient who was struck on the head but came to the ER just to be sure. Best confirmed by asking such patients to demonstrate the severity of impact by getting them to bang their heads on the nearest wall. |
| Heart sink | Frequently attending patients for whom the physician has little to offer |
| Hearts and Farts | Unit specialising in geriatrics and cardiology |
| Heel Elevation Ataxia | A woman who appears staggering drunk, but is sober (or slightly tipsy) and can't walk on seriously high stiletto heels |
| Hens teeth | As in "as rare as..." |
| Hepatology Conference | Doctors meeting at a pub or bar (no late appointments, I'm going to a hepatology conference) |
| Hey Docs (or Haydock) | Alcoholics handcuffed to wheelchairs in big-city medical wards who chorus "Hey, Doc! when they see a white coat" (sometimes disguised as "Haydock" which is a UK placename) |
| Hi 5 | HIV positive ("V" being Roman for 5) |
| HIBGIA | Had it before, got it again |
| High Serum Porcelain Level | Patient is a crock of sh*t |
| High Slug Titre | Lazy patient (slug) that won't get out of bed |
| High Speed Lead Injection | Gunshot |
| Hippo | Hypochondriac |
| Hit and Run | The act of operating quickly so as not to be late for another engagement (often a non-medical appointment). |
| HIVI | Husband Is Village Idiot |
| HMF | Hysterical Mother Figure |
| HMO | From phrase, "Hey, Moe!", a concept pioneered by Dr Moe Howard, who discovered that a patient could be made to forget about the pain in his foot if he was poked hard enough elsewhere. Modern "pokes" with same outcome include estimates for private treatment. |
| Hobgoblin | Hemoglobin |
| Hole-in-One | A gunshot wound through the mouth or rectum. |
| Hollywood code | see Slow Code |
| Hope'n'Scope | Exploratory laparoscopy where you hope to find no disease (unless you're the student, in which case you hope to see something interesting) |
| HOPEFUL | Hard-up Old Person Expecting Full Useful Life (i.e. OAPs are not priority for most hospitals) |
| Horrendoma | An awful unknown disease |
| Horrendoplasty | A very difficult operation |
| Horrendoplasty | A god-awful surgery with a probable poor outcome e.g. difficult operation for 12 hours on a patient with a BMI of 45 |
| Hospital Hobo Syndrome | Person who visits multiple hospitals seeking attention or accommodation |
| Hospital pilantrÌ_pico | (Brazil) dubiously charitable hospital where profits outweigh philanthropy. |
| Hospitalismo | (Brazil) Revolving-door patient (in-and-out-and-in ....). |
| House red | Blood |
| 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. |
| Humpty-dumpty doctor | A physiotherapist or rehabilitation doctor (from the nursery rhyme verse "all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put humpty together again") |
| Hypoxanaxemia | Patient with anxiety symptoms (Xanax deficiency) |
| Icing on the Cake | Lethal tumor discovered in the X-rays of a heart attack victim. |
| Imaginascope | What you use during radiology rounds to see the lesion the clinician is showing you but you don't see |
| Improving His Claim | Victim of minor accident, needs no treatment but wants something to support his insurance/legal claim. |
| Inbreds | Physician whose parents are physicians |
| Incarcaphobia | Patient is hypochondriac prisoner who prefers hospital to jail cell |
| Incarceritis | Becoming dubiously ill when arrested or in court |
| Incidentaloma | Something found on a scan that requires action, even though it was not what the discoverer was looking for in the first place. "I found an incidentaloma in the adrenal gland". Likely to be benign in nature, but full of liability risks. |
| Infernal Medicine | Internal Medicine department |
| Insurance Pain | Neck pain secondary to a minor car bump |
| Interesting Case | A patient transferred from a non-specialist hospital who is an unmitigated disaster with no accompanying chart or documentation |
| International House of Pancakes | Neurology ward full of patients (usually stroke victims) all babbling in a different language. |
| Intubate Junior/Intubate Willy | Catheterise a man (often results in DPS - Disappearing Penis Syndrome) |
| ISQ | In status quo |
| It's like... | The opening words of every medical or nursing student sentence. Has no meaning, just ignore |
| IWB | Intercourse With Biscuits (F**king Crackers) |
| J. P. Frog | Just plain fu@$ing ran out of gas |
| Jack Bauer | A doctor still up and working after 24 hours on the job ÛÓ now something of a rarity but well recognised by older clinicians. Usually a bit tetchy: Colleague: Going for lunch, Jack? JB: (shouts) THERE ISN'T TIME! (from the main character in 24) |
| JAFFA | Just Another Fat, F***ing Administrator |
| Jailitis | Becoming dubiously ill while in custody or in a jail cell |
| Janitor's fracture | a fracture so obvious that a janitor (cleaner) could diagnose it |
| JAR or JAR Syndrome | Just Ain't Right - often used when a patient has multiple issues |
| JDLR | Just Doesn't Look Right - something is wrong, but no diagnosis has been made yet |
| JFDI | Just F@#king 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 |
| JFO | Just fell out - used in the present tense when a person dies. "Carol Kirby JFOd. We saw the whole thing!" |
| JLD | Just like dad. Commonly used as the etiology for an FLK |
| Journal of Anecdotal Medicine | Source quoted for less than evidence-based medical facts |
| Kaiser Soze | Registrar with an uncanny ability to disappear (not answer phone or pager) when there is work to be done (from movie 'The Usual Suspects') |
| Kidney stone squirm | Spot diagnosis in A&E (see also PID shufÂâe) |
| Killing Fields | That ward in every hospital where patients go to die |
| Knife and Gun Club | local street gangs and other criminal organizations, for example "We have a very active knife and gun club, so the trauma experience is outstanding." |
| Knife-happy | an overly enthusiastic surgeon |
| Lancelot | a medic who drains abscesses (called Pokemon in the USA) |
| Lantern Test | shine a torch in the subject's mouth and the eyes light up (no brain) |
| Larry | Locum as in "doing a larry" |
| Last flea to jump off a dead dog | Oncologists who never seem to be able to let people die with dignity. |
| Leeches | Health professionals who take blood samples, e.g. phlebotomists |
| Lerner/Bernstein Fracture | The injury suffered by a patient who is intent on suing someone over his trip or fall (Lerner/Bernstein are 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 (end of the bed examination) |
| Lipstick Sign | If a female patient is well enough to put on, she is well enough to be discharged |
| Liver rounds | Staff party, so called because of liver-damaging alcohol |
| Load the Boat | Call in senior medical staff as ass-covering exercise |
| LOBNH | Lights On But Nobody Home |
| LOL | Little old lady |
| LOL in NAD | Little old lady in no apparent distress |
| Long grasser | Homeless person in the Northern Territory of Australia |
| Loop-the-loop | Flamboyant surgical rearrangement of the intestines. |
| Loose Change | dangling limb in need of amputation. |
| Low voltage | a patient demonstrably lacking in intelligence |
| LPT | Low pain threshold |
| LRO | Luck Ran Out (cheated death before, but not this time) |
| lytes | Electrolytes |
| M & M | Mortality and morbidity conferences where doctors and other health-care professionals discuss mistakes and patient deaths (sometimes also called Death & Donuts) |
| MacTilt | The lateral movement of the head to an angle of 45å¡ to the vertical by a palliative care nurse specialist. It is intended to convey sympathy and understanding. (Mac from Macmillan nurse specialist palliative care nurse and tilt.) |
| MAFAT (May-fat) | Mandatory Anasthaesia F^$k Around Time, precedes any incision |
| Map of Antarctica | (NZ) appearance of fatal spontaneous brain haemorrhage on CT scan |
| Marriageable Monster | Young female patient who has successfully undergone major plastic surgery. |
| 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 |
| MCBP | Member of the College of Bystander Physicians - doctor having a look-see |
| Meat hooks | Surgical instruments. |
| Metabolic clinic | The coffee or tea room |
| Meth Mouth | Common symptom in methamphetamine addicted patients |
| MFB, CFD | Measure For Box, Call For Dirt (severely ill [or dead or nearly so]) |
| Michelin's Disease/Disorder | Multiple spare tyres (obese) |
| MICO | Masterly inactivity and catlike observation |
| MICOS | Masterly inactivity, catlike observation, and steroids |
| Microdeckia | Micro = small, deck = deck of cards; patient playing with less that a full deck (low IQ) |
| MIDI | Myocardial infarction during intercourse (heart attack during sex) |
| Milk Of Amnesia | Propofol, an anesthetic drug with a milky white color (and a reference to the term milk of magnesia) |
| MiniMe | A trainee or medical student who emulates their senior colleague a little too much but doesn't say a lot. Can be very annoying. (From the character in the Austin Powers films.) |
| Mobile Drip Stands | Fire Dept (often found at emergencies alongside paramedics) |
| MooMoo-Mover | The big blue sheet used for moving obese patients |
| Mother's Milk | Propofol; a reference to its milky appearance and pain-relieving use |
| MTF | Metabolize to Freedom (i.e., let the person sober up, and then they can leave) |
| MU Pain | Made Up pain (especially for sick notes and insurance claims) |
| Mulambo | (Brazil) poor patients in public outpatient clinics (literally rag + beggar) |
| Mushroom syndrome | Suffered by housemen who are kept in the dark and shoveled with manure periodically |
| MVA Special | CT scan of head, neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis (on car crash patient) |
| MVA Special With Gravy | (aka MVA Full Meal Deal) - MVA Special plus face |
| N=1 trial | Polite term for experimenting on a patient |
| NAD | No Abnormality Detected or Not Actually Done |
| 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 |
| Nebulopathy | Strange clinical signs with no "normal" disease apparent |
| Nectar of the Gods | Coffee; without which many hospital services would shut down |
| Negative Wallet Biopsy | (US) patient transferred to cheaper hospital because s/he has no insurance/funds |
| Neuroslavery | Derogatory term for Neurosurgery based on the extreme long hours compared to orthopaedic surgery |
| Neurosurgical height | Slightly higher than orthopedic height (see also bounce, and turf) |
| NFF | Normal Fae Fife (Scottish version of NFN below) |
| NFN | Normal For Norfolk (originating from Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. A badly structured hospital where doctors of low calibre end up) |
| NFP | Normal for Portsmouth - repeat abortion, said to be particularly rife in Portsmouth, UK (a sailing port) |
| NFR | Normal for Rockingham (insert any additional local towns with high suspicion of inbreeding...). Traditional use of the TLA defines "Not For Resuscitation" |
| NKDA | Not known, didn't ask (As opposed to Nil Known Drug Allergies) |
| No Hopeamine | Dopamine |
| Noctor | Nurse that has done a 6 week training course and acts like s/he's a Doctor |
| NPS | New Parent Syndrome |
| NQR | Not Quite Right |
| NSA | Non-Standard Appearance (what a FLK grows into) |
| 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. If a fly lands on the tongue, the paitent is Q-dot sign positive anf has a very grave prognosis. |
| OBE | Open Both Ends (known in UK as D&V - Diarrhoea and Vomiting) |
| OBECALP | Placebo (the rationale being that patients don't realise it's "placebo" in reverse) |
| OBS | Obvious bullsh*t |
| Obs & gobs | Obstetrics and gynecology |
| Off legs | UK standard diagnosis in LOL (see above) for whom the art of defying gravity involving the lower limbs has failed. Usually not associated with any remedial problem |
| OFIGATOOS | One Foot In the Grave And The Other One Slipping |
| Ohno-second | The moment when you realize something has gone horribly |
| Old man's friend | Pneumonia (predominantly an American term) |
| Oligoneuronal | A patient who is thick (not smart). |
| Ooh-Aahs | Those who gather to gawk at an emergency and go "Oooh, Aaah" |
| Optorectomy | Operation to disconnect the eyeball from the anus, due to such a sh*tty outlook on life |
| Organ recital | A hypochondriac's medical history |
| Orthopedic height | Slightly lower than neurosurgical height (see also bounce, and turf) |
| Orthopod | Orthopaedic doctor |
| Osteocephaly | Boneheaded |
| Ostrich treatment | By pretending it's not there, one hopes it will go away |
| OTLP | On the launch pad (to be discharged to home) |
| Overpriced Carpenter | Orthopaedic doctor |
| P4P | Penicillin for a penile discharge (back when it was the treatment of choice) |
| Pakistani Healing Dance | A useless procedure performed for benefit of patient and family |
| Pan investigram | Shorthand for a raft of investigations |
| Pan Scan | Whole body scan (e.g. after car crash) |
| Panmetabolopathy | A state wherein many (or all) metabolic parameters are out of bounds (usually associated with "Rule of Five" (see below)) |
| Paperweight | (NZ) very small patient with severe congenital mental retardation |
| Papoterapia | (Brazil) to give the patient a pep talk, chitchat therapy ("papo" = chitchat). |
| Parentectomy or parent transplant | Removing parents as an effective cure to a child's problems |
| Pathology outpatients | Mortuary |
| Pathology Outpatients | Mortuary (UK) |
| PBABLTO | Pine Box at Bedside, Leave Top Off |
| PBBB | Pine box by bedside. Refers to a patient expected to die shortly |
| PBOO | Pine Box On Order |
| PDE | Pissed, denies everything |
| Pecker Checker | Either a urologist or a sexual diseases doctor (also the ship's doctor in Naval slang) |
| Peek and shriek | To open a patient surgically, discover an uncurable condition, and close the incision immediately |
| PEFYC | Pre Extricated For Your Convenience (RTA victim that has gone through windscreen) |
| Penal Colony | Renal ward/dept, especially when a superbug is on the loose |
| Percussive maintenance | Hitting an electronic item, such as a ventilator, to |
| Pest control | Term applied to psychiatrists by casualty ofÂcer |
| PFH | Parent(s) from Hell (custodians of BFH - Brat From Hell) |
| PFO | Pissed And Fell Over |
| PGT | Pissed and Got Thumped |
| PHALS | Post-Harmless Accident Lawsuit Syndrome |
| Pharmaceutically Enhanced Personality | Stoned or medicated |
| Pharmaceutically Gifted | Admissions with altered mental states as a result of drug use |
| PHAT | Pretty Hot and Tempting (warning to others) |
| PIA | Pain in the ass |
| PID shuffle | Spot diagnosis in A&E. Others include the "kidney stone squirm" |
| Pillow Consult | Wanting to smother a difficult patient |
| Pillow positive | (Wales) patients who are repeated admissions for prolonged periods with no physiological cause of their problems. It is joked they go to hospital with their own pillows ready for admission |
| Pillow Therapy | The urge to smother annoying patient (aggressive euthanasia, tontine treatment). |
| PIMBA | (Brazil) swollen-footed, drunk, run-over beggar ("P̩ Inchado Mulambo B̻bado Atropelado") |
| Pineboxatosis | Collection of conditions which lead to transfer to the ECU, usually accompanied by PBTB with positive Q-sign or O-sign |
| Pink lady | Concoction for gastritis in Australia, contains lignocaine viscous and mylanta |
| Pink puffer | Patient with emphysema |
| Pink shrink | A gay psychiatrist |
| Pit | The emergency room |
| PitiÌÁtico | (Brazil) patients feigning illness. |
| Plano Paf̼ncio | (Brazil) alleged preferential treatment of relatives of hospital employees. |
| Please Consult Us If New (Surgical) Issues Arise | Please never page me again |
| Please Optimize Medical Treatment | Don't call us until you've done your job first |
| Plumbus oscillans | 'Latin' for swinging the lead |
| Pneumocephalic | literally: 'airhead' |
| Podo-Oral | Foot in Mouth (i.e. put one's foot in it - rarely used BY senior staff, sometimes used ABOUT them) |
| Pokemon | Pronounced Pokey-man) - the medic who drains abscesses (Lancelot (lance-a-lot) in the UK) |
| Policeman lesion | A lesion on an X ray that is so obvious, a policeman would see it. |
| Poliesculhambado | (Brazil) multi-f*cked-up patient. |
| Polybabydadic | The state of having illegitimate children by several fathers, known or unknown. |
| Polydipose Dysfunction | Big, fat patient (polydipose being invented plural of adipose [fat]) |
| Pop Drop | Grandad dumping (dumping elderly relative at Casualty dept) |
| POPTA | Passed Out Prior To Arrival |
| Porch People, Walmart Greeters | Confused patients sitting in chairs in hall for close observation |
| Portcullis sign | The presence of the "O-sign" and "Q-sign" with the addition of the top set of false teeth having fallen to trap the tongue in place |
| Positive Blue Legs Sign | (US) resuscitation behind closed curtains (US ER medics wear blue scrubs) |
| Positive Hilton Sign | Demanding patient expects Hilton Hotel luxury; indicates patient well enough to leave! |
| Positive Suitcase Sign | Patients who are repeated admissions for prolonged periods with no physiological cause of their problems. They turn up at hospital with packed suitcases ready for admission |
| Possible This Possible That | Consent form in case exploratory surgery |
| Postweekend fatigue syndrome | Disease seen mainly in general practice surgeries on Monday mornings |
| Pot Plant | Person in a Persistant Vegetative State (often used in plural to mean coma ward) |
| Pox docs | Physicians who staff the gerito-urinary medicine clinic |
| PPP | Piss Poor Protoplasm - a patient endowed with inferior/defective genetic material |
| PRATFO | Patient reassured and told to fuck off |
| Pre-Detention Stress Disorder | A person who feigns medical symptoms when police handcuff him |
| Psychoceramic | Used in psychology to indicate that the patient in question is a crackpot. Also used for psychogeriatrics. |
| Psycode | Code blue in a psychiatric hospital. It is always someone passing out from the side effects of their meds. |
| Pucker Factor | The degree/speed of constriction of the surgeon's anal sphincter is directly proportional to the patient's risk of sudden death |
| 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. |
| Purple (code purple) | When paramedics are called out to a dead body |
| PVC Challenge | To intubate someone. |
| Q-dot sign | The end of it |
| Q-sign | see O-sign, Portcullis sign |
| QT-sign | Follows the Q sign, when the tongue is out and the tablet remains on |
| Quackpractor | Chiropractor |
| Qwertyitis | Disease a doctor suffers from when s/he spends more time on a computer than with actual patients |
| Rear Admiral | Proctologist |
| Red pipe | Artery (as opposed to "blue pipe" or vein) |
| Removal men | Care of the elderly department |
| Retrospectoscope | Equipment that endows the beneÂt of hindsight |
| Rheumaholiday | Rheumatology, considered by hard-pressed juniors to be a less busy department. See dermaholiday |
| Ridiot | Someone who acts like an ass on Ritalin |
| Ringo | Expendable member of a team. (After Ringo Starr, drummer with the Beatles. John, Paul, and George went on to successful solo careers. Ringo did the voiceover for Thomas the Tank Engine.) |
| Roach | A patient, usually a dirtbag/ingrate, that can't be killed despite near lethal complications of an already serious ailment |
| ROAD | Dermatologist. Acronym "Retired On Active Duty" Akin to "dermaholiday" |
| Road Chilli or Pizza | Unrestrained driver/motorcyclist or passenger, ejected and splattered |
| Road Map | Injuries incurred by going through a car windshield face first. |
| Road Map Abdomen | Scarred from multiple ops (same as Gridiron Belly, Zorro Belly) |
| Road Test | To get a drunk patient to walk up and down a corridor; if they pass they are turfed, if they fail they need a bit longer to sober up. |
| Rock | A patient that stays on your service forever |
| Rocket Room | A ward/unit where there are many deaths (many transfers to heaven) |
| Rocking horse stool | As in 'as rare as...' (see also goldfish stool) |
| Rooters | Indigents and hangers-on who gather in big-city emergency rooms in order to be entertained by legitimate cases. |
| Rose cottage | Mortuary |
| Rothman's sign | Tobacco staining of fingers |
| Rounding Up The Usual Suspects | Ordering a set of tests for a given set of symptoms |
| RPVU | Relative Porsche Value Unit - surgical index of potential income from the repair of patient injuries, usually orthopaedic in nature. Fractured finger = a windscreen wiper; a fractured hip = new tyres etc. |
| RTT with a BBB | Rat-a-Tat-Tat with a Baseball Bat (hit with blunt instrument). |
| Rule of Five | If more than five of the patient's orifices are obscured by tubing, he has no chance of survival. |
| Saddles | Maternity sanitary towels (napkins), so called for their size and the bow-legged effect of wearing them |
| Samsonite sign positive | When a patient turns up with a suitcase (Samsonite is a type of suitcase) |
| Sarcoidosis | An actual disease, but a perfectly acceptable answer that may be included in ANY differential diagnosis |
| SBI | Something Bad Inside e.g. undiagnosed cancer/unexpected serious condition found when performing surgery |
| Scepticemia | What physicians develop with experience |
| Scrape and Staple | Burns unit |
| Search and Rescue | The medical middle grader allocated to look after the patients dotted in non-medical wards |
| See one, do one, teach one | Classical way to learn medical techniques |
| Sellout | Derogatory term for plastic surgeon in private practice |
| SEP | Somebody else's problem (not to be confused with sepsis) |
| September club | Not-so-exclusive group of students doing retakes (UK), aka summer school in AUS/NZ |
| Serum rhubarb | Obscure tests carried out only in specialist centers |
| SF Scale | Sphincter Factor Scale: 1 to 10 scale indicating degree of bowel-loosening in response to an emergency |
| SFS | Stinky Foot Syndrome (often related to homeless) |
| SHA | Ship His Ass (when patients refuse to be discharged). |
| SHAD | Syphilitic, Hypochondriac, Alcoholic Degenerate |
| Shadow gazer | Radiologist |
| Shandy Tap | Bloodless lumbar puncture |
| Short-Order Chefs | Mortuary workers. |
| Shotgunning | Ordering a wide variety of tests in the hope that one will show what's wrong with a patient |
| Sick | Really sick i.e. FTD (Fixing To Die) or CTD (Circling The Drain) |
| Sieve | A physician (usually a resident) who is not skilled at dumping; the opposite of a wall. |
| SÌ_ndrome JEC | (Brazil) terminal patient ("Jesus EstÌÁ Chamando" = "Jesus is calling"). |
| SIO | Sleeping It Off |
| Slasher | Surgeon |
| Slough | Patient who another unit or hospital tries to unload on you inappropriately or unfairly |
| Slow code | Usually an elderly patient who is very ill, but wants everything done so they will not die. Everyone on the medical team disagrees. "Mr. Smith is a slow code". i.e. don't run to get the code cart (take your time). |
| Smiling death | Friendly examiner everyone loves to hate, or appears friendly but gives low grades |
| Smoke the Anaesthetic Cigar/Smoke the Camel | Intubated and ventilated |
| Smurf Sign | Patient blue or going blue |
| SNEFS/M SNEFS | Subnormal (or Mentally Subnormal) Even For Suffolk (a rural English county) |
| Snow | To accidently give a patient too much medication/mixed medication so they go into an altered state of consciousness ("Don't snow that patient with Drug X and Drug Y at the same time!) |
| Snowed | Being in a state of altered consciousness due to too much/mixed medication |
| SNUD | Sick Nigh Unto Death |
| SOB | Silly Old Bugger, Sitting Out of Bed/Sitting On Bed, Short Of Breath |
| Society for the Prevention of Surgery | Anaesthesia Department |
| SOCMOB | Standing On Corner, Minding Own Business - referencing an assault victim who is lying about their injuries to avoid discussing their own illicit acts at the time of the attack. |
| SODDI | Some Other Doctor Did It (when one medic's botched jobs must be put right/answered for by someone else) |
| Sofa Surfer | Homeless person who sleeps on friends' sofas and floors (ends up at A&E for "3 hots and a cot" when s/he has nowhere else to stay) |
| Soft admission | One that only a sieve would accept |
| SOG | Sick Old Guy (male version of LOL (Little Old Lady) |
| Special K | Ketamine - Slang for the anesthetic and amnestic drug Ketamine |
| Speed bumps | Haemorrhoids |
| Spin the Patient | CT scan |
| Spots and dots | Traditional set of childhood diseases - measles, mumps, and chicken pox |
| Squirrel | Strange patient, particularly one whose eccentricities make your life difficult. There is a related adjective, "squirrelly." A common aphorism is "Squirrels get sick too", used as a reminder not to dismiss such a patient's concerns out of hand because they may actually have a real problem. |
| SSDD | Same Sh!t Different Day (in conjunction with Frequent Flyer) |
| St. Elsewhere | Term used in ivory towers to describe any nonteaching hospital |
| Stage Mother | Person accompanying patient and encouraging patient to exaggerate the complaint (often to obtain a particular diagnosis or to get an unnecessary prescription) |
| Stamp | Skin graft |
| Stat | Immediately, shortened from the latin statim |
| Status Hispanicus | An overly agitated Hispanic patient (often Caribbean, seldom Mexican) who cannot stop screaming about their condition without providing useful information |
| Steel Sign | Surgical metalwork from previous ops visible on x-ray |
| Stem to Stern | Throat to pubis incision |
| Stream team | Urology dept |
| Stupidity Panel | Lab test (for patient stupidity) that, when invented, will earns its inventor a fortune (i.e. thick patient) |
| Sturgeon | Surgeon |
| Sucking The Peace Pipe | Intubated |
| Summer Teeth | Some are teeth and some aren't ... |
| Sunshine | How one addresses an entitled, arrogant patient |
| Supratentorial | All in the head, crazy |
| SWAG | Scientific Wild Ass Guess |
| SYB | Save Your Breath (for patients who don't take advice) |
| Tachylordyosis | (with the junctional Jesus) - Usually a middle-aged to older black female American with a complaint of "lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy", occasionally with the interspersed "Jesus" i.e. "lordy, lordy, lordy, lordy, Jesus help me, lordy, lordy" |
| TATT | Talks all the time, or tired all the time |
| TBD | Total body dolor i.e. complains of pain everywhere |
| TBP | Total body pain |
| TDS | Terminal deceleration syndrome (e.g. RTA death, high-rise syndrome, jump-suicides and parachute-failed-to-open) |
| TEETH | Tried everything else, try homeopathy |
| 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. |
| TFTB | Too fat to breathe |
| THC | Three hots and a cot - sought in ED/ER by the local homeless (three hot meals and a bed) |
| The Fish Plant | Gynaecology/Obstetrics Ward (from Newfoundland, where fisheries is the main industry) |
| The Promised Land | Private practice/final year of medical school |
| Therapeutic Monitoring | Monitoring a patient purely because it makes the doctor feel better. |
| Thorazine shuffle | Slow, lumbering gait of psychiatric patients dosed up on phenothiazines |
| Three-toed sloth | Patient with diminished capacities, usually from long-term alcoholism |
| Throckmorton sign | Also known as the John Thomas sign (UK) - 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. |
| Tinted speculopathy | A patient who wears dark sunglasses inside the hospital. They either have a personality disorder or a cause of meningeal irritation |
| TLA | Three-letter acronym. Used repeatedly by Acronymophiliacs |
| TLC | Tube, Lavage & Charcoal (given to poisoning victim) |
| TMB | Too many birthdays |
| TMI | Three Meaningless Initials (e.g. John Smith, TMI - applied to medics with qualifications rather than ability) |
| Toaster | Defibrillator |
| TOBP | Tired of Being Pregnant (especially patient demanding caesarian) |
| TOG | Tears of Gratitude |
| Tontine Treatment | Urge to put pillow over face of irritating patient (Tontine is a leading brand of pillows in Australia, also a type of will) |
| Torture Room | Intensive Care Unit (due to invasive tubes and monitors and experimental treatments). |
| Toxic Confusional State | Confused, usually elderly, person whose problem is due to constipation (toxic build up in body) |
| TrambiclÌ_nica | (Brazil) a clinic staffed by medical students in order to maximise profits ("fraudulent clinic"). |
| Transcranial Lead Therapy | Gunshot wound passing through head |
| Trauma Gods | Mythological deities whom A&E personnel believe to be the cause of major emergencies |
| Trauma handshake | n. a digital rectal exam. Every major trauma patient gets one |
| Trauma Twinkie | Ambulance (one of the smaller or European-style ones) |
| Treat and street | To treat a patient in the ER or clinic without admitting them to the hospital. |
| Trick cyclists | Psychiatrists |
| Trigger Happy | A medic that gives a shot [injection] for everything or patient that used call button excessively. |
| Triple E | Ethnic Emotional Episode, when the family of a minority patient becomes overly distressed and begins to interfere with their family member's treatment. |
| TSS | Toxic Sock Syndrome (often related to homeless) |
| TTFO | Told To F@$k Off (...or as one doctor told the Judge, to take fluids orally) |
| TTOAST | Take Them Out and Shoot Them |
| TTR | Tea Time Review or Tattoo to Tooth ratio - see Dirt Bag Index, above |
| TUBE | Totally unnecessary breast exam |
| Turf | Diverting a patient to another team by bufÂng the history to suit. |
| Turfmaster generals | The most advanced exponents of the art of turfing |
| Turn and Baste | Incontinence care (roll and clean up patient after a code brown) |
| Turtle's Head | In severe constipation where the anus is dilated and a faecal mass is visible (aka "shy turd") - the problem is, it starts to come out and then, like a turtle's head, it goes back in again! |
| TVTP | Tried Vancomycin, Try Prayer (Vancomycin is anti-MRSA drug itªs resistant to anything else) |
| TWA | Third world assassins. Slang for the allegedly poor medical care delivered by physicians who went to medical school in foreign countries (like Northern Ireland) |
| Two beers | The number of beers every patient involved in an alcohol-related automobile accident claims to have drunk before the accident |
| Two dudes | This is always the answer when doctors ask a patient who beat them up, as in "I was walking down the street minding my own business when these two dudes jumped me for no reason." The implication is that if it were only one dude the patient would have won the fight. |
| Two Legged Guinea Pig | Patient undergoing experimental or extreme treatments |
| Two Stops Short of West Ham | (Psychiatry) Barking mad. Barking is slang for "mad" and also the name of a station; it is 4 stops from West Ham, but the psych slang follows the formula "2 sandwiches short of a picnic", "Tuppence short of a shilling" (simple-minded/nuts) - the deficit is alway 2 items. Severe madness is "Dagenham" i.e. "3 stops beyond Barking". |
| TWSAM | Trash Will Survive And Multiply |
| UBI | Unexplained Beer Injury - for for all those hungover people on Sunday mornings with black eyes/swollen knees and no idea how they'd got them |
| UDI | Unexplainable Drinking Injury |
| Unborn Farts/Retained Farts | abdominal bloating due to trapped wind (gas) |
| Unclear medicine | Nuclear medicine, especially in reference to V/Q scans |
| Unfascinectomy | Long slog of a procedure |
| Unfascinoma | Long procedure, now getting longer or a procedure that fascinates specialist diagnosticians, but isn't fascinating surgeons |
| Unineuronal | Extremely educationally challenged worse than oligoneuronal |
| UNIVAC | Unusually Nasty Infection, Vultures are Circling |
| UPF | Un-passed fart - describing gasseous distention as seen on an xray of the abdomen |
| UPID | Ultimate Personality Improvement Device - Endotracheal tube |
| Urban Outdoorsman | Homeless person |
| Vampires | Those who take blood samples, e.g. lab techs (also slang for blood donor service) |
| VD | Veak and Dizzy. Any older person who just doesn't feel "right". No specific complaint, but decided something must be wrong and came to the ER at 2am. "I am just weak and dizzy doc!" |
| Vege | a patient requiring intensive care, incapable of movement |
| Velcro | Family or friends accompanying patient everywhere; also applies to medical students who follow doctors too closely. |
| Veranda | area in front of nurse's station where the porch people sit (see Porch People) |
| Viaggravation | What a doctor gets from a patient who is demanding erectile dysfunction medication on the NHS (not all areas of the UK provide this on NHS) |
| VIP | Very intoxicated person |
| Virgin abdomen | A patient that has never had abdominal surgery before, implying that there will be little intra-abdominal scarring. |
| Vitamin A | Ativan |
| Vitamin D | Diazepam for sedation, also Vitamin V for valium |
| Vitamin D | Diesel (ambulance term). "Give it some Vitamin D" means drive faster |
| Vitamin H | A haloperidol 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. |
| Vitamin H | Heroin (drug addict) |
| Vitamin K | Ketamine for procedural sedation or intubation. |
| Vitamin L | Lasix |
| Vitamin M | Morphine |
| Vitamin P | Lasix (diuretic) given to stimulate urination (peeing) in post-operative patients; can also mean Prozac |
| Vitamin V | Valium, Diazepam or any intravenous sedative; in General Practice it is Viagra |
| Vitamin Z | Zosyn or Zoloft |
| VOMIT | Victim Of Modern Imaging Technology (i.e. try treating the patient, not the report from radiology; particularly referring to invasive procedures for false positives. |
| VTMK | Voice To Melt Knickers (the voice deliberately cultivated by some doctors) |
| WADHAO | weak and dizzy and hurt all over |
| WAFTAM | ("woff-tam"): Waste Of F#$%Ing Time And Money |
| Wall | A physician (usually a resident) adept at preventing admissions to his service. See "dump" |
| Walletectomy | An expensive procedure, in private practice |
| Ward 101 | The source of referrals that fills the recipient with dread. (From room 101, which contained all the deepest fears of the protagonist in George Orwell's novel 1984.) |
| Weed Puller | Obstetrician |
| White cloud | An on-call doctor who has uneventful call nights. As opposed to a Black Cloud |
| White Lizard | The white coloured "cocktail" given for stomach problems (Black Lizard is similar "cocktail" but contains activated charcoal) |
| White Mice | Tampons |
| Whopper with cheese | Description of a woman with large pendulous breasts with moist intertrigo beneath them |
| Wifty | Mildly confused, but seems oriented most of the time |
| Wig picker | Therapist or psychologist |
| Wilkinson's Syndrome | A patient who has slashed their wrists with a razor blade (after a popular brand of razor) |
| Will Follow From A Distance | Will check your lab results, but will never set foot in your room again |
| William | (UK) chiropedist i.e. William the corn-curer (William the Conqueror) |
| Win the game | To discharge all of the patients from your service, so that you have no inpatients to care for. For example "Mike won the game and doesn't have to round this weekend." Also known as a "Yahtzee" |
| Winner | A patient with very good luck; can also sarcastically mean a loser. |
| Witch doctor | Specialist in internal medicine |
| WITPOMS | Why Is This Patient On My Service |
| WNL | Used for recording vital signs. It can mean "within normal limits" or "we never looked" |
| WOMBAT | Waste Of Money, Brains And Time |
| Woolworth's Test | Anaesthetic term (if you could have imagined patient shopping in Woolies, it's safe to give a general anaesthetic) |
| Wooly jumper | Any non-acute physician |
| Wrinkly | Elderly patient |
| WTDB | White Trash Douchebag (Pronounced "whiskey tango DB") |
| WWI | Walking while intoxicated (and fell over) |
| YAVIS | Young, attractive, verbal, intelligent, successful. |
| YMRASU | Your Medical Records Are Screwed Up |
| YOYO | You're on your own; see "amyoyo" and "solomf yoyo" (also message passed from one doctor to another regarding problem/mystifying cases) |
| YSM | Yummy scrummy mummy - an attractive parent |
| Zebra | An unusually strange or unexpected disease (from the saying "When you hear hoofbeats, the smart money is on horses, not zebras") |
| Zorro belly | Surgical inscription on the abdomen of an unfortunate patient |
UCEM Core Content
- Utopian College of Emergency for Medicine (UCEM)
- UCEM Publications and Position Statements
- UCEM Mission Statement and Essential Roles and Core Competencies
- About the Utopian College. Including Education; Examinations; and Collegial Hierarchy
- Utopian Medicine General News
