Misnomers in Medicine

[DrBeethoven]

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[Roxas]

"Mandatory ethics lecture"

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

For what it's worth, the patellar "tendon" is named that way because it is part of the larger extensor mechanism, I.E. the quad tendon. The patella is a giant sesamoid bone, and so is also part of that mechanism. So technically the patellar tendon is just an extension of the quad tendon, but people tend to separate the two in their minds when thinking about it.


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[kb1900]

Misnomers in Medicine

Has a bunch

 

[HumbledHuman]

LY for Step, but high yield for funny Sheldon Cooper conversations 🙂

 

[akuko2]

My least favorite is pyogenic granuloma. Confused me for so long until I just accepted that the name makes no sense.

 

[DrBeethoven]

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[libertyyne]

I dont know if its a misnomer, but efferent ductules really bothers me for some reason. Where are the afferent ductules in the testes bro?

 

[mmmcdowe]

Benign external hydrocephalus

 

[HybridEarth]

Lupus anticoagulant always gets me.

 

[username456789]

My least favorite is pyogenic granuloma. Confused me for so long until I just accepted that the name makes no sense.

Speaking of dermatology, mycosis fungoides is a great one.

 

[CherryRedDracul]

Synovial sarcoma. Immunohistochemically, it bears little relation to synovium and is rather more like epithelium.

 

[FindMeOnTheLinks]

heart failure. Should just be labeled systolic/diastolic dysfunction with/without depressed ejection fraction, imo. Scares the **** out of patients though which probably is for the better

 

[mehc012]

My least favorite is "activated partial thromboplastin time" which is the name of side of the coag cascade that you don't add tissue factor (aka thromboplastin) to. Because eff my life.

I mean, I know the history of how they got there, but...no. Change the name when you learn better.

 

[imtheman25]

Silhouette sign is one that always gets me.

 

[mehc012]

For what it's worth, the patellar "tendon" is named that way because it is part of the larger extensor mechanism, I.E. the quad tendon. The patella is a giant sesamoid bone, and so is also part of that mechanism. So technically the patellar tendon is just an extension of the quad tendon, but people tend to separate the two in their minds when thinking about it.


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Yeah, people need to make their minds up on the named sesamoid bones (patella and pisiform, are there other important ones?) because it's confusing as hell the way it's done now. Also on whether quadriceps is one muscle with 4 heads, or 4 muscles - different books break it down differently, but they all seem kind of embarrassed to admit that they think of it as a single muscle. At least with the 'triceps surae' they finally decided to break it down and stuck with it.

 

[deleted407021]

Silhouette sign is one that always gets me.

For me it’s lucency. My brain really wants that to mean “bright” on x-ray, not dark, so it always takes a few extra seconds to orient myself to what that means on a question or whatever.

 

[OrthoTraumaMD]

For me it’s lucency. My brain really wants that to mean “bright” on x-ray, not dark, so it always takes a few extra seconds to orient myself to what that means on a question or whatever.

Think of it this way...brightness on xray indicates more dense structures that xrays cannot pass through. Xrays pass easily through dark "holes" so it shows up on the image intensifier. Kind of like a "light" getting through a crack in the curtains. But yes, they could have used a better term.


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[BluegrassBuckeye]

Ludwig's Angina is one that bothered me.

 

[HuntDoc]

The iliococcygeus muscle of the levator ani. Attaches to the ischium rather than the ilium. I've been told it is named that way based of the animal species it was discovered in.

 

[mistafab]

Off the top of my head - desquamitive interstitial pneumonia. They called it desquamative because they thought it was squamous filling of the interstitium by some sloughing off process. Low and behold, these were actually macrophages.

 

[freecitizen]

I wouldn't consider "-oma" a misnomer. According to wiktionary -oma means "Forming nouns indicating tumors or masses, which may be benign or cancerous (malignant)." There are in fact many malignant tumors ending in oma:

1) Lymphoma
2) Seminoma
3) Melagnoma
4) Blastoma
5) Mesothelioma
6) Glioma
7) Astrocytoma

Carcinoma refers more to epithelial origin. Sarcoma refers to soft tissue and bone tumors.

 

[zhopv10]

Another derm one: lupus pernio


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