Fleas and other glowing nicknames

[Dunce]

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Can anyone explain where the term "fleas" came from?

Also, feel free to post more nicknames for the other specialties. I'm sure there might be some good ones out there that some of us have not heard yet, and this board could use a good thread with an inherent lack of seriousness.

 

[Gimlet]

Can anyone explain where the term "fleas" came from?

Also, feel free to post more nicknames for the other specialties. I'm sure there might be some good ones out there that some of us have not heard yet, and this board could use a good thread with an inherent lack of seriousness.

Although I don't think this is the origin of the word, I remember a quote from a book that said (to paraphrase) "IM doctors and neurologists are fleas because they're the last things to leave a dying body."

I like "scalpel jock" or "scalpel jockey" for a surgeon.

 

[dynx]

Can anyone explain where the term "fleas" came from?

Also, feel free to post more nicknames for the other specialties. I'm sure there might be some good ones out there that some of us have not heard yet, and this board could use a good thread with an inherent lack of seriousness.

I just learned about this term. One of my ortho attendings asked me if I knew which clerkship I was on and told me I could lose the "flea collar" (the stethoscope around my neck). Funny guy.

 

[southerndoc]

The term "flea" as applied to medicine physicians originated in 1347, when then "physician" Michael Sinclair was treating victims of bubonic plague during the Great Plague that wiped out more than 25% of the world's population.

Dr. Sinclair was devoted to his patients, as were the fleas that were responsible for spreading the disease. Hence the nickname flea was applied to a physician for the first time. The rest is history.

These possibly untrue moments in history have not been verified and are intended for entertainment purposes only.

 

[Megalofyia]

Although I don't think this is the origin of the word, I remember a quote from a book that said (to paraphrase) "IM doctors and neurologists are fleas because they're the last things to leave a dying body."

I like "scalpel jock" or "scalpel jockey" for a surgeon.

That sounds like it game from "When the air hits your brain."
It's a very good book.

It might have come from some other book but since I dont read many books and I've read that quote before...

 

[Dr. V]

I had heard: "They are all want your blood AND they are the last to leave a dying dog."

From the IM wards: "Anybody know about Orthopedist Point?

That's the Xiphoid Process, where they can hear breath, bowel and heart sounds with out moving the stethoscope"

"Can we make Surgery rounds today? That's when you just walk down the hall and touch the doorframes of the patients rooms"

 

[Casey James]

Can anyone explain where the term "fleas" came from?

Also, feel free to post more nicknames for the other specialties. I'm sure there might be some good ones out there that some of us have not heard yet, and this board could use a good thread with an inherent lack of seriousness.

I've heard nephrologists referred to as nephrons and pediatricians reffered to as pediatrons, but only by the surgeons.

There are a few other interesting slang terms in here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_slang


I'd heard most of them before but quite a few were new to me.

 

[undecided3yr]

Can anyone explain where the term "fleas" came from?

Also, feel free to post more nicknames for the other specialties. I'm sure there might be some good ones out there that some of us have not heard yet, and this board could use a good thread with an inherent lack of seriousness.

I have heard the term applied to internists because they go around the hospital with large groups of students, residents and fellows and then draw blood.

 

[Casey James]

Weed Puller - Obstetrician
Unclear medicine - nuclear medicine
Stream team - urology dept
Slashers - general surgeons
Short-Order Chefs - mortuary workers
Shadow gazer - radiologist
Knuckledragger - Orthopedic Doctor/Surgeon
Cath Jockey - cardiologist

This one's my favorite:

Double Whopper with Cheese - Obese female with genital thrush

 

[n3ur05ur930n]

I was under the impression that it was because they are so numerous - like fleas.

 

[NateatUC]

One of our trauma attendings, VERY jokingly, calls the Emergency Physicians "FEDS" for "f***ing ED". Allow me to repeat - VERY jokingly - everyone in the ED loves him!

 

[Mumpu]

Also fleas because they get excited and jump up and down about nothing.

All this from the chief of surgery at a local program. And we wonder where the specialty-bashing comes from...

 

[turtle md]

.

I like your avatar. Good book. Shame about the guy, though.

 

[Dunce]

Stream team - urology dept

ha! that's great
I had heard it before but forgot all about it. I have also heard the Urology department referred to as the "dick squad," although that probably isn't the most appropriate term.

Someone I know used to refer to the rads residents as moles. I think you can guess why.

 

[-Goose-]

Stream team - urology dept

Rod squad?

 

[DropkickMurphy]

"Vent jockeys", "Phlegm fetchers", "Snot suckers"- respiratory therapists
"Vultures"- pathologists (they only show up when something is dead or about to be)
"The delicatessenologists"- pathologists again, because you always can count on them to slice things 'extra thin!'
"Boners"- orthopedic surgeons

 

[angel80]

I had a nephro attending who jokingly called the orthopods "dinosaurs"- because of their "big bodies and small brains." I don't mind the specialty bashing when it's done in jest, but I hate when it is done seriously. Some specialists are so self-righteous and believe that they're the only ones helping the patients, when in actuality, every specialty and sub-specialty serves a purpose.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

http://www.shartwell.freeserve.co.uk/humor-site/medical-acronyms.htm

3P’s - Pill, Permissiveness and Promiscuity (relates to female patients with sexually transmitted disease)
45C - patient is one chromosome short of a full set (thick)
Acades vulgaris - medical students.
Air-conditioned - Multiple gun shot wounds
AHF - Acute Hissy Fit
APRS - (US) Acute Puerto Rican syndrome (bouts of screaming and yelling)
Bagrinhos - (Brazil) interns ("bullheads" - type of fish that gets in the way of real fishing)
BMT - Bowel-Movement Taco (faecal matter trapped in female genitalia)
Chocolate Hostage - constipated
CTF - Cletus the Fetus (US). A 23 week, or earlier, births that parents expect to survive against all odds
Dandruff on wheels - scabies or other transmissible flaky skin condition
Doing the Twirly - circling the drain (about to die)
FINE - F*cked up , insecure, neurotic & emotional
FOOBA - Found On Ortho Barely Alive (a play on FUBAR - F***ed Up Beyond All Recognition)
Goat Rodeo - Emergency scene which goes badly (resembles a bunch of people riding or wrestling goats) **ONE OF MY PERSONAL FAVORITES**
GROLIES - (UK) Guardian Reader Of Low Intellect In Ethnic Skirt
HAIRY PSALMS - Haven't Any Idea Regarding Your Patient, Send A Lot More Serum
International House of Pancakes - neurology ward full of patients (usually stroke victims) all babbling in a different language.
LFTWM - Looking for 3 Wise Men (applied to young pregnant females who deny having had intercourse)
NFF - Normal Fae Fife (Scottish version of NFN below)
NFN - Normal for Norfolk (rural area, suggests inbreeding or quaint rural oddness), might explain FLK
Paperweight - (NZ) very small patient with severe congenital mental ******ation
PEFYC - Pre Extricated For Your Convenience (RTA victim that has gone through windscreen)
PRATFO - Patient Reassured And Told to F*** Off
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
Slow Code (to China) - elderly very ill patient who wants everything done so they will not die. Everyone on the medical team disagrees
SPAK - Status Post Ass Kicking
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".


From the veterinary list on the same page:
CFT - chronic food toxicity i.e. obese

 

[BKN]

Can anyone explain where the term "fleas" came from?

Lots of great guesses here. Maybe some are correct, But at least in the 70's at Baylor and the Hop the surgeons used the term to describe internists as "flitting around like fleas, accomplishing nothing".

Yeah, I know that fleas jump, they don't flit. . .but these were surgeons.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

but these were surgeons

Amen.....that reminds me of a joke I heard.....do you know how they pick people for orthopedics residencies? You pith the bottom 25% of each medical school class, those who can crawl away go into FP and IM, those who can't become orthopedic surgeons.

 

[drPLUM]

Goat Rodeo - Emergency scene which goes badly (resembles a bunch of people riding or wrestling goats) **ONE OF MY PERSONAL FAVORITES**

Pppfffttt!!! LMAO!

 

[fernj1975]

Amen.....that reminds me of a joke I heard.....do you know how they pick people for orthopedics residencies? You pith the bottom 25% of each medical school class, those who can crawl away go into FP and IM, those who can't become orthopedic surgeons.

How times have changed. Now days it's more like the top 15% of each class goes into Ortho.

 

[f_w]

How times have changed. Now days it's more like the top 15% of each class goes into Ortho.

Yah, but once they start the residency, they get some sort of lobotomy, or at least some major frontal lobe damage. It is truly sad how previously intelligent human beings loose their mental capacities in such a short time only creutzfeld jacobs will do you in faster.

 

[Mumpu]

Actually what happens is that orthopedic surgeons become honest with their skills and interests. They are very good surgeons who make no pretense to know internal medicine and have no desire to practice it. Therefore, they get excellent surgical outcomes because they focus on their area of expertise (surgery) and let the experts do medical management.

Contrast this with general surgeons who hate medicine but whose egos and/or stupid traditions (the same traditions that welcome and tolerate dinguses) won't let them admit that they don't know jack about IM. Hence you get atrocious care pre/post-op. A general surgeon is as bad in medicine as an orthopod (neither of the specialties gets any medicine training) -- the difference is that orthopods don't practice outside the scope of their training.

 

[fernj1975]

Yah, but once they start the residency, they get some sort of lobotomy, or at least some major frontal lobe damage. It is truly sad how previously intelligent human beings loose their mental capacities in such a short time only creutzfeld jacobs will do you in faster.

Now you tell me, should have spoken to you a year ago.

 

[f_w]

Therefore, they get excellent surgical outcomes because they focus on their area of expertise (surgery) and let the experts do medical management.

Well, if only SURGICAL outcomes count, maybe they do a decent job.

to know internal medicine and have no desire to practice it.

Still shouldn't absolve them from remaining a physician. Not practicing IM doesn't mean you should ignore the signs and symptoms of medical disease. This is not about treating diabetes, this is about sending a diabetic to an endocrinologist if their control is sketchy (and their foot ulcer doesn't heal). And yes, the heart is more than the organ that pumps the ancef around.

 

[f_w]

Now you tell me, should have spoken to you a year ago.

Don't worry. A year from now you won't even remember this exchange and your mental peace will be resurrected. You will just fit in with the crowd, make dull jokes about women and pat yourself on the back for a job well done on that lady with the cracked hip. She's in rehab, outcome is great. Who cares why she tumbled, somebody is going to figure it out.

 

[dawg44]

heart = pre-osseous pump

 

[dawg44]

Don't worry. A year from now you won't even remember this exchange and your mental peace will be resurrected. You will just fit in with the crowd, make dull jokes about women and pat yourself on the back for a job well done on that lady with the cracked hip. She's in rehab, outcome is great. Who cares why she tumbled, somebody is going to figure it out.

Exactly that's why we are a consult only service at my hospital we don't have to worry about that it's someone elses job.

 

[Dunce]

On the subject of acronyms SOC MOB has to be one of my personal favorites (I heard this one when I was lurking over in the EM forum one day)

SOC MOB = standing on corner minding own business

It is used as the explanation given by the dude sitting over on the stretcher looking like he was just on the receiving end of a loving embrace from a mac truck. The story invariably involves those notorious "two dudes" who apparently hang around streetcorners just waiting to beat up on innocent people who are SOC MOB.

 

[dry dre]

Still shouldn't absolve them from remaining a physician. Not practicing IM doesn't mean you should ignore the signs and symptoms of medical disease. This is not about treating diabetes, this is about sending a diabetic to an endocrinologist if their control is sketchy (and their foot ulcer doesn't heal). And yes, the heart is more than the organ that pumps the ancef around.

Who ignores such symptoms?

How about sending them to an PCP first? Consulting specialists at the drop of a hat is expensive and bad medicine. Patients can wait three months to get into a specialist clinic instead of being treated from day 1. The fact that there are specialists in the world shouldn't absolve PCPs from responsibility to treat routine disease. Pods in residency and private practice work significantly more hours than PCPs and simply don't have time for medical management. The standard of care is thus for medical management to remain completely off our scope. In ortho residency now I deal with a disproportionate amount of consults from PCPs that reach for the consult card 2 nanoseconds after a patient says "knee pain." This is an issue they will be tasked with initiating treatment for in the real world (treatment not equalling consult). Moreover, in the real world, PCPs admit and manage the medical issues of ortho patients, saying "thank you for the interesting consult." Again, who ignores these symptoms?

 

[tridoc13]

I had heard: "Can we make Surgery rounds today? That's when you just walk down the hall and touch the doorframes of the patients rooms"

We called it "LOFD" rounds (Looks OK From Door) when I was on surgery. 😉

 

[PatrickBateman]

This one's my favorite:

Double Whopper with Cheese - Obese female with genital thrush

Ha ha. That cracks me up. 👍

 

[Adcadet]

Ahh, the things I learned on surgery...
ABCs of Anesthesia = Airway, breakfast, coffee
SICU 4 = morgue (we only had SI's 1-3)

 

[Mumpu]

An oft-repeated truism at County: Death begins in radiology.

The ABCs reminded me of EMS - Earn Money Sleeping, and BLS - Band-aids, Lights, Siren.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Ahh, the things I learned on surgery...
ABCs of Anesthesia = Airway, breakfast, coffee
SICU 4 = morgue (we only had SI's 1-3)

Or Airway, breathing, chair (crossword/computer...) 😀

 

[Casey James]

ABC's of surgery

Assess, blame, criticize, deny, evade.

😀

 

[Hawkeye Kid]

Or Airway, breathing, chair (crossword/computer...) 😀

Or Airway, book/bagel, coffee/chair, doughnut, extubate... 😎

 

[njbmd]

Can anyone explain where the term "fleas" came from?

Also, feel free to post more nicknames for the other specialties. I'm sure there might be some good ones out there that some of us have not heard yet, and this board could use a good thread with an inherent lack of seriousness.

Hi there,
My uncle, a very smart and intellectual cardiologist refers to himself as a "flea" because as he says, he is the last to leave a dying carcass and then he jumps to another.

He refers to me and other surgeons as "philistines" or the "unwashed". If you look at Merriam-Webster's second definition of "philistine" you will see that is means "a person who is guided by materialism and is usually disdainful of intellectual or artistic values" or "one uninformed in a special area of knowledge".

Since my uncle is one of only three people in the history of the Board of Internal Medicine to score five perfect scores on his certification and recertification exams, I tend to enjoy his characterizations of "orthophilistine" "neurophilistine" and just "general philistine".

njbmd 🙂

 

[dynx]

Hi there,
My uncle, a very smart and intellectual cardiologist refers to himself as a "flea" because as he says, he is the last to leave a dying carcass and then he jumps to another.

He refers to me and other surgeons as "philistines" or the "unwashed". If you look at Merriam-Webster's second definition of "philistine" you will see that is means "a person who is guided by materialism and is usually disdainful of intellectual or artistic values" or "one uninformed in a special area of knowledge".

Since my uncle is one of only three people in the history of the Board of Internal Medicine to score five perfect scores on his certification and recertification exams, I tend to enjoy his characterizations of "orthophilistine" "neurophilistine" and just "general philistine".

njbmd 🙂

This reply has middle east writen all over it. I suspect some India.

 

[asdfaa]

.

 

[njbmd]

This reply has middle east writen all over it. I suspect some India.

Hi there,
Sorry, but 100% USA but of course Virginian.

njbmd 😀

 

[Leukocyte]

Hi there,
.....cardiologist refers to himself as a "flea" because as he says, he is the last to leave a dying carcass......

I wonder that is the medical slang for Pathologists?

 

[Hurricane]

I wonder that is the medical slang for Pathologists?

No, the pathologists don't get to the patients until they're already dead, which would make them vultures. 😉

 

[turtle md]

No, the pathologists don't get to the patients until they're already dead, which would make them vultures. 😉

or maggots

 

[Dunce]

or maggots

I have heard them called vultures -- by a very jaded gen surg resident nonetheless

 

[PatrickBateman]

I've heard the pathology dept. being referred to as "the Delicatessen" or the "The Deli" - because they're always cutting thin slices of meat.

 

[Leukocyte]

I think I prefer "maggots."

I do not know, but there is somthing about saying....:

-"look at that Flea"

-"look at that Maggot"

....that, I don't know, sound more ...



PS: Do not get mad guys. It is all for fun. That's all.

 

[njbmd]

I've heard the pathology dept. being referred to as "the Delicatessen" or the "The Deli" - because they're always cutting thin slices of meat.

Hi there,
This is hysterical. Have you ever noticed how many morgues are located in the basement of the hospital right next to the cafeteria?? The "Deli" located right next to the cafeteria. Hmmm?? Makes the term "mystery meat" take on a whole new meaning.

njbmd
P.S. I have totally given up cafeteria food anyway. Starbucks is the bane of my existance.

 

[Winged Scapula]

P.S. I have totally given up cafeteria food anyway. Starbucks is the bane of my existance.

Since we convinced the Starbucks in hospital to open at 0600 and take our meal cards, the number of coffee cups on rounds has expanded exponentially!