pretty good web site.

for 20 yrs, and have never heard most of these and wouldn't chart any of them. The majority are not amusing and quite condescending. That being said, TMJ made me laugh and I'll share that one with my burnt-out, over worked coworkers for a laugh. I'm sure we'll think of a few choice politicians suffering from TMJ.

'4F' is usually used when evaluating for gallbladder vs cardiac. But it's not charted.

"Fair, fat, and forty" -- white female, overweight, and middle-aged = probably gall-bladder patient. Can't swear it was in Mark Twain, but it's stuck in my head these past 40 years.

You should hear some of the things attorneys say- or maybe you shouldn't.

OP, I understand about the stress.

sued by my siblings my lawyer told my siblings' lawyer that my wife could not afford to buy my sibling out after my mother died.

He was not helping us at all and I went to my siblings lawyer with papers proving my lied through her teeth about loans she took out on the home before my mom died.

I was surprised he would tell me such a thing. Perhaps because he like I was disabled, I don't know. Guess my lawyer did not think I would ever hear of this, never mind that I would have the balls to go to other lawyer's office.

Of course we fired him and we are still in the house ten years later.

even the use of medical abbreviations/acronyms are often regulated.

I would think any healthcare personnel would be out of their minds charting any of these.

Unrec.

them or make them up they come from somewhere.

No need to either critique it heavily or defend it -- I can pretty much guarantee it's verbal and never written down, designed to let off steam in stressful environments.

I dated a young doc once who observed my then-roommate and her kids, all of them chronically unhealthy, and said to me (privately) "We refer to that as PPP: piss-poor protoplasm."

most of those aren't at even mildly offensive.

dehumanize patients are very concerning to me.

It seems like doctors who are the most aloof always give me better care.

Just a little personal anecdote.

IOW, giving the problem more attention than an individual's emotional state. That's who I'd want working on me.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

We had a friend, who is a nurse, come to a party Saturday straight from work. Her comment was "killed a patient, saved a patient, ready for some beer."

You can call it dehumanizing, but it is a very real defense mechanism because someone would be pretty fucked up without that dealing with the death they see every day. I have no problem with gallows humor, so long as it is not in front of the afflicted or their family/friends. We all need to cope.

Don't need to explain that.

A health care provider asking for a hug and a drink and a laugh when they get off work on a dead baby day isn't asking too much.

And yes, some sorts of health care professionals are simply assholes (the cold surgeon stereotype...) but maybe if they weren't thick-skinned assholes they wouldn't be able to do their jobs. I'd want a heart surgeon who is a good mechanic. His bedside manner wouldn't matter so much if it didn't interfere with his work.

On the other hand, I once had personal work experiences with a heart transplant surgeon who was such a humongous asshole it did interfere with his work because nobody wanted to work with him. He eventually got fired for his abusive behavior toward other hospital staff, especially women. My supervisor had us all documenting his bad behavior.

I used to work closely with transplant techs. OMG, in a relaxed break room setting they were a clique of Addams Family Gothic. Some of them even dressed the part in subtle ways. I think I understand... removing usable body parts from brain dead people who are still warm... I cannot imagine doing that. But that's what they do to save the lives of others who still have a chance of survival. Underneath the thick black body armor the transplant techs were among the kindest, most gentle, altruistic people I've ever met.

I'm not in the medical professions any more, maybe I'm too sensitive for that, but I have immediate family who still are. I prefer computers. If something goes horribly wrong you can halt the system and revert to previous images for as long as fixing the problem takes. Human beings, so far as we know, don't have backup copies.

People in healthcare who invest far too much emotion into a patient are even more concerning to me. Science requires objectivity.

why do you think it is?

When's the last time you saw a written chart in a hospital?

by a nurse on one of the websites I found so I used it in the title.

years. It is a horrid job and I urge anyone who is still in it to get out if at all possible, and for those considering it, don't waste your time. However, what used to really get on my nerves is when a doctor would prescribe a medication or therapy for a patient and said medication or therapy didn't help the patient. The doctors will dictate something to the effect that the patient failed his/her course of medication/therapy. This was dictated even when patients had been compliant with doctor's orders. Seems to me that the medication/therapy failed the patient, not the other way around.

You've confused ER slang with IC9 codes. No one will ever have GOMER charted, but they will have a number code for their condition.

above.

These ones I have seen, are commonly know.

FU follow up
SOB shortness of breath (diagnosis
ABC Airway, breathing, circulation (used for emergencies, cpr, etc)

but not the facebook one since it had real names.

First one of these I ever heard - from that guy though it wasn't on this list - was SHPOS: "Sub-human Piece Of Shit" - he said he had first heard it while doing his stint in an ER.

I doubt they go on the charts. This sounds like ER slang to me. ER docs and nurses have one of the toughest jobs in the world. I am not gonna razz them. The pressure they're under would drive most of us screaming into the night.

Last edited Mon Oct 20, 2014, 08:45 PM - Edit history (1)

charts but perhaps notes to each other to serve as warning. I worked briefly in an hospital and was in the ICU when a poor woman grabbed me and begged me for help.

I went to the nursing station and told the one the nurses who looked over and said, oh never mind her she is always complaining about something. It was time for my lunch break so I left.

Came back to the ICU and her bed was overturned and I asked another nurse what had happened. She told me she died. Her last breathes were to me begging for help and I'll never forget that. I quit not long after that.

The jobs are hard and the humor self-protective. And the information loop is so public that some code is often the only way staff can be honest about what they're dealing with.

There's a lot to worry about in the world. This isn't some of it.

impressed that people treat those who are sick or those who they have power over like crap. You may not be worried, but since I have many health problems I do worry.

It just means they see so much that would traumatize the hell out of most of us and are treated like functions themselves that they use code to lighten the job and to warn one another. I've had considerable experience in hospital with Mr. Bear and one of the Cubs too, and in our experience being a smart, polite, self-advocating patient with a sense of humor who actually treats the medical personnel like people helps a lot. "Hi. Hope your day has been good. I really appreciate all you're doing." Being the HAHHMI (heart attack hope he makes it) is worth cultivating.

most healthcare systems have systems where patients can get a code number and access their medical record electronically so these kinds of abbreviations are not at all helpful.
I've used abbreviations when getting report that does not go in the medical record we all carry pieces of paper with abbreviations written on them but with bedside computing and electronic records there's less of that.
I've been a nurse 40 years. I've had days where only dark humor can get you to come back to work the next day but I don't share it with people outside the medical field and I don't write it down. I don't recall seeing those kinds of abbreviations in years in an actual record.

that are not included in the official record, is that a possibility? Maybe the blackboard that are in the hospital rooms? I did not make these up and was shocked when I saw them.

since medical records are more accessible there is much less abbreviations documented. Most of the abbreviation are verbal not documented. I use my own abbreviations for notes I write myself for instance sa1. It's suicide attempt the 1 can go to 10. It's my own ranking of lethality. I wouldn't use it in the record.

that one hurt since it hit home, worse part I ended up a FLD

Stealing All My Money, Yup.

...us to maintain our professional composure that some sort of outlet is needed, even in a basically happy clinical specialty like a private pediatric practice. Private use of humor is a coping mechanism.

I have had to keep a straight face when finding out a mother still wipes her 11 yr old daughter's bottom after the child pees. The child is not disabled.

I have had to keep a straight face when a mother told me she had consulted a medium about her 4 yr wetting her pants during the daytime. Grandma came thru and informed the mom that "They won't find anything and she's going to be fine."

An acquaintance of mine had to keep a straight face when asked "Isn't it dangerous to put a hat on your newborn, because don't babies breathe thru the soft spot?"

Or how about this. "If you put Vicks on a baby's feet when they have a cold, it helps because babies breathe thru their feet."

with patients who are diagnosed with personality disorders, and I hear that kind of stuff on a regular basis. Gallows humor is basically used as a coping mechanism and a way of blowing off steam. If the person saying it is compassionate, caring, and professional in their job I don't really care if they push the edge with comments in the break room where the patients aren't going to hear it.
I'm only offended by it at work if I think the person really means it, and 99% of the time they don't mean it.