Friday; TGIF. The weekend is ahead and I plan on relaxing. Today I'll be donating blood. Then I'll be doing nothing until Monday when I'll be heading up to the office to hand in my time sheets so I can get paid. But for the weekend ahead I have nothing planned. Just me, the comfy sofa, the TV an my writing.
Perfection.
Who do you think are the most cynical people in the world? Cops? Executioners? Or maybe prostitutes? Clowns?
We're thinking it's doctors. If you want proof, check out some of the horrifying-yet-hilarious slang they use around the office. You won't ever hear these being used on
House. Yes, these are real.
#8.
PRATFO
What It Means:
Patient Reassured And Told to F*ck Off.
When It's Used:
When a patient comes into the ER more hysterical than ill, the doctor reassures the patient and asks them to leave. However, this acronym
has gotten at least one doctor into trouble when he scribbled it in a patient's chart and then later was asked to explain it in court.
We're not saying you should ever lie in court, but in that situation you should at least consider it.
#7.
AMYOYO Syndrome
What It Means:
Alright, M*therf*cker, You're On Your Own.
When It's Used:
If television is to be believed, any condition, no matter how egregious or how slim the chances of survival, can be surmounted with the intervention of a charismatic, slightly eccentric doctor or the introduction of a particularly salient plot point.
Well, television is not to be believed. If a patient split from crotch to neck, sustained a shotgun wound to the chest, or fell twenty stories onto the pavement, then a great deal's up to a God. Assuming he exists, or cares. Thus we get the AMYOYO Syndrome diagnosis, with the variations SOLOMFYOYO (So long, M*therf*cker, You're On Your Own) and GPO (Good for Parts Only).
#6.
Faecal Encephalopathy
What It Means: Sh*t-for-Brains.
When It's Used:
If you wind up in the emergency room because, say, you were trying to launch bottle rockets out of your anus, you can expect to hear this term thrown around. Latin, or pseudo-latin, is often used to convey unflattering terms and make it sound grandiloquent to the uninformed (or faecal-encephalopathic) ear.
Variations include Cranio-Rectal Syndrome and Cranial Rectosis, presumably for when the patient doesn't have **** for brains but merely has his head up his ass.
#5.
Cut and Paste
What It Means:
Also called an "
Open and Close" or a "
Peek and Shriek," this is when a surgeon opens up a patient for surgery, discovers nothing can be done to avert the inevitable, and sews them back up immediately. Or, if they feel like it, practice surgical technique for a while.
When It's Used:
Generally, this is encoded as "C&P," "CNP" or something similar, so that the head of the department knows what happened but the to-be-aggrieved family doesn't. Typically this happens with very old people, those with suddenly aggravated chronic health problems, or people with inoperable cancer, soon resulting in a "healthy tumor" (a dead patient).
#4.
SBI
What It Means:
Something Bad Inside.
When It's Used:
When the medical staff encounters a strange complaint that doesn't meet any known diagnostic criteria. As much as you don't want to hear SBI as your diagnosis, it's still better than the alternate SVBI (
Something Very Bad Inside) which means whatever it is appears to be killing you.
Either may be followed up with a "SWAG" (
Scientific Wild-Ass Guess).
#3.
CTF
What It Means:
Cletus the Fetus.
Used to describe infants born at 23 weeks or earlier, where their survival rate is less than 1%. There are no confirmed cases of babies surviving at 22 weeks or earlier, which means that children born then are less likely to live than someone who just jumped off the Empire State Building.
When It's Used:
New parents have a tendency to not hear anything that doesn't fit the "Our child will survive because he is special, we are special, and we love him" paradigm. No. Little Cletus will make it no matter what those mean old overpaid white coats tell Mommy and Daddy. Because life works like Lifetime home movies.
It's at this point you should realize that when you're surrounded by the sick and dying every day, no subject is too dark for comedy.
#2.
Slow Code
What It Means:
Hospitals use a series of emergency codes (Code Blue, for instance, means the patient is dying and needs immediate resuscitation). Not listed among the official codes is the Slow Code, meaning the patient is dying, and not to worry too much about it.
When It's Used:
Sometimes, a very ill, very elderly, or very hopeless patient wants the doctors to do everything they can to keep them alive. And sometimes, doctors don't want to do that: it's too much work, the patient will die anyway, or the person just isn't worth preserving.
#1.
CBT
What It Means: Chronic Biscuit Toxicity. (Patient is really fat.)
When It's Used:
Doctors seem to be inventing more and more of these unflattering terms as obesity becomes more chronic in the western world. You may also hear Polydipose Dysfunction, BW (
beached whale) and others, all of which are sure to see plenty of usage until some enlightened future when a doctor can just say the phrase "lard ass" to a patient's face.
Bonus:
Here are some other, rather self-explanatory terms you probably don't want to hear in the halls outside your hospital room:
Brothel Sprouts: Genital warts.
COPS: Chronic Old Person's Disease.
Donorcycle: Motorcycle. Doctors refer to Motorcycle drivers as 'organ donors' and rainy day's as 'Donation days'.
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