Different terms/meds used across the USA

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Specializes in med-surg, teaching, cardiac, priv. duty.

Any nurse ever move from one area of the USA to another, and find that different terms are used?? Or just that different meds are used more or less frequently?? Just curious!

Up north where I was originally from if we needed a fingerstick bloodsugar on a patient we called it precisely that. "Get a fingerstick on Ms. Jones in 403b." Then I moved down south and they were talking about "semiquans". "Get the semiquan machine." I had NO IDEA what they were talking about!! Stands for semi-quantitative which it actually is, but up north we NEVER called it that...

Or back then up north Tylenol and Codeine was a very common pain med ordered. It was said verbally, and abbreviated, as "T & C #3" or "T & C #4". When doctors wrote orders for it they even wrote it that way... (I know that nowadays most things have to be written out and abbreviations are bad, but this was over 10 years ago now.) But, anyways, when I moved down south, T & C was not a common med ordered. (Instead Tylox seemed to be the med of choice. I had NEVER even heard of Tylox up north!) But anyways, once I did get a phone order from a MD (here in the south) for Tylenol and Codeine. I read the order back to him and just automatically said it as "T & C", and the doctor was like "What?!! T & C? What are you talking about? I just told you tylenol and codeine." Oops....sorry.

Or, down here, they give milk and molosses enemas! I have NEVER and I mean NEVER heard of this up north. In fact, I thought it was a joke and that they were trying to pull my leg!!

Any other interesting stories?

I imagine that foreign trained nurses that move to the USA to work as nurses, must have issues with this as well...

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Specializes in LTC, MDS, Education.

Texas catheter vs condom catheter.:lol2:

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I hear different terms from floor to floor, clinic to clinic. That is bad in itself...I can imagine the culture shock of traveling from one state to another, or hospital to hospital hearing these wild terms and trying to figure them out. I think they should be more standardized. It would be safer.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

Wow, exactly where "down south" are you? I've lived and worked in the South all my life and I have never heard "semiquans" used. We call them fingersticks too, or an accucheck--which I guess comes from the machine used. You are right about the Tylenol with codeine thing, you don't see that used alot here, at least where I work, and they are referred to as "Tylenol #3s", etc. Also, where I am originally from, docs always prescribe Lortab for everything. Here in Atlanta, we live in Vicodin and Percocet land, nobody gets Lortab here. Oh yeah, when I worked on an med/surg floor as a unit clerk, the docs order "Milk and Molasses" enemias all the time--I'm so glad I work in the ER!

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Glucoscan, glucometer, accu-chek;

Guerney vs. stretcher;

KVO (keep vein open) vs. TKO (to keep opoen)

Heparin Cap, Heparin Lock or...believe it or not, "Buffalo Cap"(that's CO for you)...but really, the correct term that we should use is "saline lock"

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I live where the North and South areas come together, and we use milk and molasses enemas, they work great!! I don't know what the milk does, but ofcourse the molasses makes it slide right on out.

We say fingersticks, accuchecks, or blood sugars.

Saline-lock, Heparin-lock, Hep-lock....all the same lock just depending on if using saline or heparin to flush. We don't use heparin anymore to maintain peripheral lines, just saline.

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Specializes in LTC/SNF, Psychiatric, Pharmaceutical.
Glucoscan, glucometer, accu-chek;

Guerney vs. stretcher;

KVO (keep vein open) vs. TKO (to keep opoen)

Heparin Cap, Heparin Lock or...believe it or not, "Buffalo Cap"(that's CO for you)...but really, the correct term that we should use is "saline lock"

I've never actually worked at a place that used saline locks. Every place I've ever worked at still uses heparin.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

This milk and molasses enema thingy is very interesting...never heard of it. :0)

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new england here....T #3, and yes they do use milk+molasses enemas....havent seen it in years.....warmed of course....the strangest term (to me) for checking blood glucose was "chem strip"......FSBS is what i usually see written....

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Specializes in med-surg, teaching, cardiac, priv. duty.
Wow, exactly where "down south" are you? I've lived and worked in the South all my life and I have never heard "semiquans" used.

Hi! I am in South Carolina. Maybe it is something local to this area?

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Specializes in ICU.

gave 1 milk and molasses enema in my life in a trauma unit no less. have a SMOG enema at the hospital i work at now.......saline, mineral oil and glycerin.....learn something new every day :smokin:

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One of the nurses I used to work with called a blood sugar a "dextras." I've also heard it called a "CBG," a "gluco-stick," and a FSBS. I usually just say blood sugar.

The place where I did my paramedic training said "buffalo cap" for a saline lock and "updraft" for a nebulizer...I've also heard a nebulizer called an "aerosol."

One of the weirdest I've heard is a "peel here" for an IV t-extension. One of the guys in a paramedic class called them that because that is the only writing on the package...now I've even heard people who don't know this guy and who aren't even in our EMS system calling them a "peel here."

:)

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