Medical Ebonics

Started by Scrubbs
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Scrubbs said:
Had a patient the other day giving me a surgical hx...

Pt: "I had a vaginal microwavezation for bleeding."
Me: "A what?"
Pt: "Yeah... that's what they told me it was... a microwavezation for my fibroids."

Translation = Uterine Embolization. At least she new what it was for... never would've figured it out otherwise! :laugh:
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In that same vein, I had a patient tell me she was thinking about having an "endometrial deflation," i.e. endometrial ablation 😀
 
I never hear anything original, but then I got three new to me this week....

1. pt taking rx for "caesars"
2. i cut my leg; do I need an attendance shot?
3. pt wrote "i am on a low castrol diet" {what foods don't you eat 😀 }
 
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Just picked up the body of a woman whose daughter told us that one of her health problems was "a really bad case of ass-biteys". Took me a second (of looking at the body) to realize she meant ascites.
 
I bet you didn't know that the word "fever" can be used as a verb. It can as in "I done been fevering." It's even better in its full context of "I done been fevering and my boss won't let me go home. So I come here for you to make my boss let me go home." Consequently I put on my EP cape and flew right over to her place of business. I walked in and found her boss and stated in a loud and sure voice "Sir, I am DocB from the Hospital X Emergency Room. I hereby comandeer your labor force and demand that you send my patient home. I furthurmore decree that you raise her wages and address her as "Your Highness." My job being done there I was of like a flash to smite the Evil Overlord of HMO because my other patient had come to the ER so I could get his outpatient MRI of the knee approved. It's a tough job being the only person in the universe who can deliver health care but it's the lonely burden of the EP. Da da da daaaaa!!!!
 
I was reading a dictated clinic note the other day. The note said the patient was put on 25 mg of scrotal lacked tongue. I think he meant to say spironolactone...but I was interested in the scrotal tongue to be honest.
 
"Pain" can also be used as a verb. Example: "This toof been painin' me all week. Now it done swolled up on me."
 
Praetorian said:
Funniest name I've ever encountered: a 16 y/o black asthmatic named Orangejello (he and his family pronounced it "Uh-rahn-juh-low"). I damn near pissed myself laughing. Apparently his mother decided to name him using a system she'd heard about American Indians using- name the child after the first moving non-human object you see. She seemed like a sweet woman, so I can only pray has drugs to blame for this, because otherwise it should qualify as child abuse to name your child after any food product that "jiggles".
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I've heard this before except there was also a twin named Lemonjello (pronounced "Lee-mon-juh-low").
 
jetproppilot said:
Dude is a bystander at a MVA

Critical driver removed...

EBONICS DUDE: "Yep, they removed him and started doin' UPS on him."..
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Is that what you call a code-brown?
 
Not mine... but a pt with stab wound to buttocks in Reno.


Medical student: So what happened?

pt: you know.... Friday night.
 
I kinda like "swellage" - you know, its what happens to your ankles when you're in decompensated CHF.

Not really funny I know, but consider it came from a pt's daughter who stated she is .... an RN STUDENT!
 
I personally had a patient-small black girl- named Terror (could have been a wayward spelling of Tara?)
 
Uhh I had orangejello and lemonjello No joke.. then I brought this up somewhere I interviewed at and apparently it is semi-common.. They had an "Orangejello" before.. I wonder if it was the same patient but it was in 2 different parts of the country!
 
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-"obeastity"
-"sudomonas"
-"ventricalator dependent"

and probably more to come in the future 👍
 
-sontimeter (zoantimeter, with a nasal thing in the first syllable)
 
EctopicFetus said:
Uhh I had orangejello and lemonjello No joke.. then I brought this up somewhere I interviewed at and apparently it is semi-common.. They had an "Orangejello" before.. I wonder if it was the same patient but it was in 2 different parts of the country!
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I remember at some point when I was a relatively young kid there was something in the news about twins whose parents named them Orangejello and Lemonjello (pronounced approximately "or-ahn-jullo" etc.). So perhaps a lot of other people heard about this and decided they loved the names? :laugh:

My husband's mother, a high school teacher, has had students named Male and Female, pronounced "Mah-lee" and "Fe-mah-lee." It's probably been mentioned here before, but my husband said it was only hearsay for him until he really met one of these kids. 😛

My mother was an attorney in legal aid for a very long time, and did some interesting name changes. One was a woman named Schlitzella, who was named that because her parents apparently conceived her while drinking Schlitz. Another was an adult woman named Clitorus. God knows how she survived to adulthood with a name like that.
 
I had a patient in the past month or so named "Shemale" (Sheh-mal-ee)

The most recent ghetto word I've enjoyed is "conversate"

"You kinow, we wus up at the crib, just conversating, minding our business, when these two dudes . . ."

mike

tigress said:
I remember at some point when I was a relatively young kid there was something in the news about twins whose parents named them Orangejello and Lemonjello (pronounced approximately "or-ahn-jullo" etc.). So perhaps a lot of other people heard about this and decided they loved the names? :laugh:

My husband's mother, a high school teacher, has had students named Male and Female, pronounced "Mah-lee" and "Fe-mah-lee." It's probably been mentioned here before, but my husband said it was only hearsay for him until he really met one of these kids. 😛

My mother was an attorney in legal aid for a very long time, and did some interesting name changes. One was a woman named Schlitzella, who was named that because her parents apparently conceived her while drinking Schlitz. Another was an adult woman named Clitorus. God knows how she survived to adulthood with a name like that.
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I have had some recent interesting cases in central Texas while doing another EM elective. I saw a girl the other day and she had a little baby in the carrier next to her named Toshiba. She said she got the name while shopping at Target....heard something about Toshiba on the overhead and thought it was some kid's name who had been lost or something.

Then I had this guy who's family was stricken with the ever dreaded Texas wildfire (while-far) cancer and was worried he had it to. He said one day they would wake up with cancer, and the next day it had spread like wildfire and killed em.
 
SupportingOccam said:
Why don't you take it somewhere else? Oh yeah, you don't because it's socially unacceptable elsewhere. Gee, why is that.

You really have to make fun of 'medical ebonics' so that you don't burn out and quit medicine? Now THAT is funny.
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This stuff is funny... plain and simple. I am sorry that you find it offensive, some people will. I find some things offensive too, like being told by a patient that it was my responsibility to learn to speak spanish because he didn't want to translate for his non-english speaking wife while at triage.... but I didn't grab a pen and jam it into his eye or anything.... We (meaning the staff) just laughed about it later.... because, yep you guessed it, it was funny... Life is meant to be fun and things are meant to be funny.... go ahead, laugh... it won't hurt unless it is really funny, careful though, you sometimes have trouble catching your breath....

I know your just trying to impart your will and protect those individuals that can't protect themselves and blah blah blah....but really, if you think about it....it really is funny....really
 
First post. Not a Doc, not in EM, not a nurse, not a medical student. I am glad that I found this site, though, and call an Amen! and raised hands a lot to ya'all. I am your friendly (sometimes) front office, the receptionist/clerk. It was the discussion of names that really got my attention (last names changed to protect HIPAA privacy):

1. Family James: Mom - "It's a family name."
Us (thinking) - Famil...Fa...You've gotta be joking, right?

2. Blesseth, Christian, Holy Hill: Can we sense a theme, anyone?

3. Aventaralimageorie Filamon: The nurses just call him George.

4. Nevaeh Mitchell: Me (on the phone with medicaid) - "Ma'am, how do you spell the baby's name?
Mom (apologetic shrug) - "It's just heaven spelled backwards."
Me (trying to think up something harsh about yet another oddly named child...but kinda touched by how tired and sweet this mom looks) - "Okay, thank you ma'am, we'll get it handled and the doctors will see her shortly. Have a seat."
 
This is not funny at all. I cannot believe you are sitting here making fun of people who rely on you to help them because of their cultural differences or their socioeconomic challenges. I mean, damn. Make fun of them for something they can help, like sticking lightbulbs in their rectum. That's funny. This is not.

Oh, and after all, they can't read this, right? 🙄 Think again. I found it, and I could be any one of these patients and recognize my story being told here.

Makes me really rethink how I view doctors. Thank you, you're doing a great service to your profession here.

Oh, and I have tattoos AND teeth. Do I still qualify for mandatory sterilization?
 
Horrified said:
This is not funny at all. I cannot believe you are sitting here making fun of people who rely on you to help them because of their cultural differences or their socioeconomic challenges. I mean, damn. Make fun of them for something they can help, like sticking lightbulbs in their rectum. That's funny. This is not.

Oh, and after all, they can't read this, right? 🙄 Think again. I found it, and I could be any one of these patients and recognize my story being told here.

Makes me really rethink how I view doctors. Thank you, you're doing a great service to your profession here.

Oh, and I have tattoos AND teeth. Do I still qualify for mandatory sterilization?
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Question for you: how do you blow off steam when you are frustrated with work and absolutely MUST talk about it with someone?

Possible answer: go sit in a bar with a beer and talk about it.

Unfortunately, in many cases, doctors can't vent this kind of stuff over a beer, for fear of breaking privacy laws. So they (and someday I will) come here.

When I worked in clinical research, I occasionally had the most frustrating days, where my study patients admitted non-compliance and told me all kinds of s--- I didn't want to know. I couldn't then sit in a bar in my patient's hometown discussing it.

Admittedly, some of the stories are not about frustration, but rather about lack of education in our patients. Is it at all possible that we share those stories partially out of a desire to lament this sorry state of affairs?

Doctors are human too. The sooner the general public begins to accept that we are not G-d (although we do occasionally play him on TV), the better off everyone will be.
 
The reality is if we took all the situations seriously I dont think we could have a soul left. Once you work with patients and see what a sad state of affairs we are in you are left with 2 choices. You can internalize it all which IMO would lead to depression, sadness and rapid burnout, or you can joke about these things and realize that people do silly and funny things, many dont take their education seriously and choose to not conform to societal standards.

Horrified, you should realize that we are nothing more than educated people, the expectations placed on us are unrealistic. You have to understand that while we have fun here, in real life we work our tails off often for people who have little chance of surviving and even more often for people who think that they are doing us a favor.
 
FoughtFyr said:
My wife's brother-in-law's nieces (convuluted enough for you?) are named Hailey, Mary and Grace...

- H
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Not all those crazy names are new...I have a looooong dead (~200yrs) female relative named "Thankful". Took us a while to work out that it was her 1st name. Her tombstone reads:

"Thankful, wife of Thomas" It was a while before anyone noticed the ',' in the somewhat weatherworn stone.
 
Horrified said:
This is not funny at all. I cannot believe you are sitting here making fun of people who rely on you to help them because of their cultural differences or their socioeconomic challenges. I mean, damn. Make fun of them for something they can help, like sticking lightbulbs in their rectum. That's funny. This is not.

Oh, and after all, they can't read this, right? 🙄 Think again. I found it, and I could be any one of these patients and recognize my story being told here.

Makes me really rethink how I view doctors. Thank you, you're doing a great service to your profession here.

Oh, and I have tattoos AND teeth. Do I still qualify for mandatory sterilization?
Click to expand...
No but you should qualify for a new procedure called dermal pachynization.
 
ReceptionClerk said:
4. Nevaeh Mitchell: Me (on the phone with medicaid) - "Ma'am, how do you spell the baby's name?
Mom (apologetic shrug) - "It's just heaven spelled backwards."
Me (trying to think up something harsh about yet another oddly named child...but kinda touched by how tired and sweet this mom looks) - "Okay, thank you ma'am, we'll get it handled and the doctors will see her shortly. Have a seat."
Click to expand...

Since I'll be having my first child soon, I've recently been frequenting pregnancy and baby websites. You'll be interested to learn that in the near future you will be meeting quite a few more Nevaehs. Apparently Nevaeh has become a very popular name. I have no clue how it's pronounced. Neh-vay-uh?

Actually, now that I think about it, it's sort of pretty. But I'm not sure who came up with the idea of spelling heaven backwards 😛
 
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tigress said:
Since I'll be having my first child soon, I've recently been frequenting pregnancy and baby websites. You'll be interested to learn that in the near future you will be meeting quite a few more Nevaehs. Apparently Nevaeh has become a very popular name. I have no clue how it's pronounced. Neh-vay-uh?

Actually, now that I think about it, it's sort of pretty. But I'm not sure who came up with the idea of spelling heaven backwards 😛
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Just as long as you don't start to see too many boys named Lleh. 🙂
 
LOL, great thread, glad it was revived.

My wife is a teacher at an inner-city school, and has worked with children since high school.

One child's name was Ta Ta. Pronounced Tay Tay.

Another was named La-a. Any guesses as to how it was pronounced? La Dash ah. Yep, the hyphen is a "dash."
 
Patient coming in for gynecomastia in a clinic was named Areola (his parents were from overseas but still)...

Also had a patient named Y'it, you know, as in Wyatt...
 
Apollyon said:
In Buffalo, that is common, but only for the Interstates (the 90, the 190, the 290) and four state expressways (the 198, which runs into the 33, the 219, and the 400) - but, as the 33 goes on, the (more rural) people just refer to it as "33", likewise for the 219. Ironically, all of these highways (except the 90 and 190) have actual names assigned to them. Go figure.
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The Youngmann, the Kensington, and the Scajaquada. I've only ever heard Rt 400 called "The 400"; same for the 219.
 
and i thought australia was bad. americans make our ''slang'' look decipherable!

i waz down the wateringhole havin a couple when i smacked mah noggin on the damn bar'' translation '' i was down the pub having a couple of beers when i slipped and hit my head on the counter''

i got in a blue with my oldman'' translation ''i got in fight/argument with my dad''

''he called me a bloody galah so i socked in the shnoz'' translation '' he called me a loud, rudely behaved person so i punched him in the nose''

these a few that come through
 
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