Common nicknames for hospital items.

Nurses Humor

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Just wanted to see if the nicknames we call certain items are the same names you guys call them lol. I work in the midwestern region.

Examples include:

1.) "Bubblier" for humidifier

2.) "Ice pack" for the polar pack and the original ice pack

3.) "Patches" for tele electrodes

4.) "Stickers" for labels

5.) "Booties" for spenco boots

6.) "Christmas tree" for O2 connector

That is all I can think of at the moment. Feel free to add to the list. I am looking forward to seeing new nicknames I haven't heard before :)

Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.

I have not read all the responses, so it might have been said before… "nose hose" for NG tube

Metal arm coming off the ventilator to hold the tubing in place = The Extubator

Restless patient who squirms and moves all over the bed = Bed Swimmer

Decription for the above patient who slides down in bed and has a leg or two hanging over the side minutes after you fix em up real pretty = Aesthetically Unstable

Ducky for the duck bill styles masks

Annoying pt/family member is a PITA--pain in the @$$

Specializes in Peds/Neo CCT,Flight, ER, Hem/Onc.
Triage is the torture chamber or box of doom

Hee hee! We called it..

The Penalty Box

Or if I was in it,

***** in a Box (sorry mods?)

Specializes in OR.

Code Shakespeare may be my new favorite thing ever!

I'm from SC. Love this thread!

Jack Sprat = Jackson Pratt

HazMat cocktail = Kayexalate liquid

Circling the drain = it doesn't look good (re: patient)

Specializes in ER/Emergency Behavioral Health....

This is fun. I love how some of the slang is the same.

We have Christmas trees to hook up our oxygen tubing to the wall.

Scuds to help prevent blood clots.

Hats to collect urine/stool specimens.

Vitamin A for Ativan and H for Haldol

When someone asks for dilaudid we say they "want the D"

Walkie talkies are patients that are alert oriented and stable on their feet.

I'm sure there is more but I just came off a long 12 hour night so my brain is fried

Some places call it a saline lock, others call it hep locked. In colorado, they continue to be buff capped.

Pigtails for extension tubing

VS machines I heard called dynamaps (brand maybe) for most of time time as a cna. I still slip that into conversations and am now unsurprised by the looks I get in return.

1/2 NS w/ 20KCl. = house wine

GBGB = Gastric bypass gone bad

We use FLK funky looking kid (NICU humor) and I just heard one from an adult ICU nurse the other day that I had not heard before..... PHD pentecostal hair do .... this is when your patient who is pentecostal and has many hair pins in their hair and they are on the ventilator. Apparently the pins go everywhere in the bed.. She also said one of the other acronyms she saw on a dictation from an MD was PBTBKLO pine box to bedside keep lid open. Now that one is kinda freaky...

in all my years of nursing i always questioned why they didn't call it go heavy!!!!! :cool: that's what my pt. in gi use to say.

Considering GoLytely is really false advertising, how about we call it what it really is.....GoAllNightly :yes:

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