Palpation versus palpitation...

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Honestly, I didn't actually know they were different words...
 
Anyone else get annoyed at how often people use palpitate in place of palpate? It kind of reminds me of conversate and orientate (...Firefox apparently accepts orientate as a word but rejects conversate), except palpitate actually means something else.

I think most people in med school who switch the two just do it for the humors.
 
I didn't even know people mixed up the two terms- I've never heard someone say palpitate instead of palpate (and I would have heard it by now- just finished learning how to do abdominal exams).

You know what drives me crazy though? People here keep saying "phar-nyx" instead of "phar-ynx". Is that accepted as a correct pronunciation or something? I hear it from medical students and even heard a physician say it. Maybe it's a Texas thing?
 
that's 100% wrong. OED and Dorland's agree.

i've never heard that one before, maybe it is regional.
 
Wow there's some silly arse med students out there.

One I discovered recently is that rales is not pronounced "rails" like "nails," it's "ralls" like "balls." Maybe I'm a dum-dum too 😛
 
oh yeah, for some reason I hate it when people pronounce the "A-B-" in abduction. Like, "yeah this muscle adducts and the other ay-bee-ducts." STFU. But professors do it too. Is it really that hard to hear the difference?
 
Sometimes palpation leads to palpitation.
 
oh yeah, for some reason I hate it when people pronounce the "A-B-" in abduction. Like, "yeah this muscle adducts and the other ay-bee-ducts." STFU. But professors do it too. Is it really that hard to hear the difference?

All of the professors at my school say "A-B-ducts"
 
What we need is a systemic method of organizing our words so people stop using the wrong ones.
It gets so frustrating sometimes that I can feel my intercranial blood vassals dilatate.
 
What we need is a systemic method of organizing our words so people stop using the wrong ones.
It gets so frustrating sometimes that I can feel my intercranial blood vassals dilatate.

Exploding-head.gif
 
All of the professors at my school say "A-B-ducts"

And every time it happened I would turn to my neighbor and ask, did he say "A-B..." or "A-D-duct", because pausing like that only made it more unclear!
 
You know what drives me crazy though? People here keep saying "phar-nyx" instead of "phar-ynx". Is that accepted as a correct pronunciation or something? I hear it from medical students and even heard a physician say it. Maybe it's a Texas thing?


Yup I do that. Also with larynx .


Anyone else get annoyed at how often people use palpitate in place of palpate? It kind of reminds me of conversate and orientate (...Firefox apparently accepts orientate as a word but rejects conversate), except palpitate actually means something else.

Do it as well.



It's not like I don't know what it means when I say it. I'm pretty terrible at pronunciations in general. I usually read the dissector so that my tank mates can have a good laugh as I read. I suck at "anastomoses" as well.
 
Describing an abdomen as tympanic (incorrect) vs tympanitic (correct) annoys me, too.

That, and all of the senior residents I know who STILL describe a patient's dosing "regiment." Regiment!! 🙄
 
All those are pretty good examples. The one that annoys me the most, without a doubt, are the older surgeons who pronounce centimeter as "sonometer" as opposed to "cent-ameter" It's not "sonometer" dummy. Are you measuring something on a sonogram? Where the hell did that come from?
 
All those are pretty good examples. The one that annoys me the most, without a doubt, are the older surgeons who pronounce centimeter as "sonometer" as opposed to "cent-ameter" It's not "sonometer" dummy. Are you measuring something on a sonogram? Where the hell did that come from?

There are physicians that pronounce centimeter as sonometer? Never heard it, now I know not to laugh when I hear it in the clinic... I'll just get all the laughter out now: bahahahahahaa :laugh:
 
There are physicians that pronounce centimeter as sonometer? Never heard it, now I know not to laugh when I hear it in the clinic... I'll just get all the laughter out now: bahahahahahaa :laugh:

Definitely :laugh: I've heard it a bunch of times..."the tumor was 2.5 sontometers" It's always coming from some old guy with a pocket protector.
 
dilation vs. dilitation... discuss 🙄 I'm just awful.
 
dilation vs. dilitation... discuss 🙄 I'm just awful.

Yeah that one gets me going too. Is dilatation a correct version?

I heard e-nervate (aka innervate) today. Loved it.
 
I can't stand it when people say:
"Track" instead of Tract
"Pneumonic" instead of mnemonic
 
-Axe vs Ask (Even amongst medical professionals)
-Burl vs Boil (down in the dirty dirt...means the south)
-ED-uh-muh vs ed-EE-mah (though now I say it to make fun of how idiotic it sounds)
-Abdomen vs Ab-DOH-men
-Sahntimeter vs Centimeter
-Tympanic vs Tympanitic (i learned the difference in my 4th year, oops)
-Track vs Tract (but lets be honest who really knows which to use)
-Orientated vs Oriented
-RENnin (digests milk) and REE-nin (renin is the RAS hormone)
-I definitely wrote Pnemonic for my pulmonary mnemonics, though I thought i was being funny
 
Last edited:
Just thought of another one, since it is RAMPANT here on sdn.

Advise - the verb, the action of advising or giving advice
Advice - the noun, the thing that is given as a result of advising
 
'
 
Last edited:
Tin-it-us vs. Tin-eye-tus
Um-bill-eye-cus vs. Um-bill-ic-us

Both are accepted uses of each other. Much like dilatation and dilation, both uses are interchangeable. - Sapira's Art of Bedside Diagnosis
 
Top