From the mouths of non-nurses

[mattcastens]

My wife, a piano teacher, and I were talking about music and she was using some pretty "technical" terms that I, not a music professional, didn't understand.

She said, "Now you know what it's like for me. You come home and start talking about your pasta and broccoli."

I didn't understand.

"Your pasta and broccoli. You know -- you talking about them all the time!"

I still had no clue.

She sighed. "When you're talking about your heart patients and how they had pasta or broccoli."

Then it dawned on me. I laughed. :chuckle

She meant when I talked about PTCA ("pizza") and CABG ("cabbage"). :roll

[polly_purebred]

Our communications center folks are not medically trained. When they take calls from EMS and then type the complaint on our ambulance board, the results can be quite humorous. My two favorites are "Grandma seizure" and "Sinkable episode." :wink2:

[Jennyw45013]

Some of my faves:

-Trichomannassas

-Antecubical

-Hyena Hernia

-Trash (thrush lol)

-Someone told my coworker their doctor told them the next time their virgina bled this bad, they would need an appalachian lol :)

[HurricaneBreeze]

I had a very funny 80ish year old male recently who despised his foley catheter. He was getting up to ambulate and grabbed ahold of the bag and told me to slow down because he needed to grab his "**** purse." I about lost it on that one!

[WoofyMutt80]

When my father had his CABG in October, the doctor came in the night before to explain the procedure, and my father is a wise a** anyways! The doctor said "John, your here for a CABG" and my father said "A cabbage? I thought I was getting a tomato!" The doctor busted out laughing!

[handyrn]

Well, this is an old thread and I'm not sure if anybody reads it any more, but I have a new one. I was recently assessing a patient for an insurance claim. In explaining how difficult it was to carry on ADLs she kept telling me that she just couldn't see to do things because of her "immaculate degeneration.":lol2:

[Zippyy]

in A&E had a patient complain about the ambulance men....they were calling her names...tacky.....turned out they were dicussing her heart rhyme..tachy...bless her took us ages to explain to her so she would underrstand :)

[Aeterna, BSN, RN]

Either the person who types in a person's admitting diagnosis into the computer system sucks at typing or he/she isn't a nurse because we once got a patient admitted with "External shortness of breath".

The nurse working on her admitting papers was like, "So...does that mean she's short of breath only on the outside but not the inside?" LOL