Medical slang is the slang of doctors, nurses, and other Hospital and Medical staff. One part of medical slang is the use of technical-looking acronyms to describe patients or situations, often facetiously, to other medical professionals. Some of these acronyms are considered unacceptable these days.
Acronyms
Descriptions of symptoms
- PFO - "probably fell over"
- PGT - "probably got thumped"
- UBI - "unexplained beer injury"
Other acronyms
- CTD - "circling the drain" (expected to die soon)
- DBI - "dirt bag index" - a number calculated from number of tattoos and missing teeth
- FLK - "funny looking kid" (sometimes used to note mongoloidism or low-level abnormalities of appearance)
- GLM - "good looking mum"
- GOMER - "get out of my emergency room"; patient, usually poor or elderly, in the emergency room with a chronic, non-emergency condition. Popularized by Samuel Shem in his novel House of God
- GPO - "good for parts only"
- TEETH - "tried everything else, try homeopathy"
- TTFO - "told to fuck off", instructed to go away
Slang terms
Terms for occupations
- Captain Kangaroo - head of a paediatrics department
- Gasser, gas passer - anaesthetist
- Slasher - surgeon
- Short-order chef - morgue worker
Other terms
- Angel Lust - A death erection.
- Crispy critter - severely burnt patient
- Departure lounge - geriatric ward
- Fascinoma - any interesting or amusing tumor or malignancy
- Pumpkin positive - lacking in intelligence; implies that the patient's brain is so small that shining a torch into their mouth would cause their head to light up like a pumpkin
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