Doctors, nurses, and other health-care professionals need to communicate with each other quickly and effectively. They also have a sense of humor, as you'll notice in the following list of slang terms used in hospitals.
- Appy: a person's appendix or a patient with appendicitis
- Baby Catcher: an obstetrician
- Bagging: manually helping a patient breathe using a squeeze bag attached to a mask that covers the face
- Banana: a person with jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes)
- Blood Suckers/Leeches: those who take blood samples, such as laboratory technicians
- Bounceback: a patient who returns to the emergency department with the same complaints shortly after being released
- Bury the Hatchet: accidentally leaving a surgical instrument inside a patient
- CBC: complete blood count; an all-purpose blood test used to diagnose different illnesses and conditions
- Code Brown: a patient who has lost control of his or her bowels
- Code Yellow: a patient who has lost control of his or her bladder
- Crook-U: similar to the ICU or PICU, but referring to a prison ward in the hospital
- DNR: do not resuscitate; a written request made by terminally ill or elderly patients who do not want extraordinary efforts made if they go into cardiac arrest, a coma, etc.
- Doc in a Box: a small health-care center, usually with high staff turnover
- FLK: funny-looking kid
- Foley: a catheter used to drain the bladder of urine
- Freud Squad: the psychiatry department
- Gas Passer: an anesthesiologist
- GSW: gunshot wound
- MI: myocardial infarction; a heart attack
- M & Ms: mortality and morbidity conferences where doctors and other health-care professionals discuss mistakes and patient deaths
- MVA: motor vehicle accident
- O Sign: an unconscious patient whose mouth is open
- Q Sign: an unconscious patient whose mouth is open and tongue is hanging out
- Rear Admiral: a proctologist
- Shotgunning: ordering a wide variety of tests in the hope that one will show what's wrong with a patient
- Stat: from the Latin statinum, meaning immediately
- Tox Screen: testing the blood for the level and type of drugs in a patient's system
- UBI: unexplained beer injury; a patient who appears in the ER with an injury sustained while intoxicated that he or she can't explain
For more intriguing lists, check out:
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