Dumbest question ever...

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What does NOC stand for? I know it's night shift and I work it but what is the acronym? I can't find it online. Thank you :)

It's from the Latin, harkening back to the days when educated people all learned some in school. "Nocturnal" refers to "of the night," right? It is not an abbreviation, so it is not properly capitalized. It's "noc."

Ever wonder why it's "OS" for "left eye"? or "pc" for "after meals"? or NPO for "nothing by mouth"? Latin, Latin, Latin. Look them up and read the derivations.

The big capitalized "NOC" is an abbreviation, and it has nothing to do with nighttime. It stands for "Nursing Outcomes Classification," as in the terrific book, "NANDA, NOC, and NIC Linkages," a really good helper for students who haven't a clue about how to think about interventions and outcomes and put them all together when they have to make nursing diagnoses and plan care for actual patients.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.

In my area, it's used by nurses to describe what other fields call graveyard shift. None of my associates outside of nursing use it, even those that work overnight. It's also called "third shift"

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Actually, noc IS an abbreviation (shortened form) for nocturnal.

NOC is also an abbreviation, specifically an acronym (if you pronounce it as a word "noc"), or initialism (if you pronounce the letters individually N.O.C.)

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NOC is short for NOCTE which is Latin for night. Ther english language is FULL of Latin esp. in the medical field.

MANE with an apostrophe on teh "E" is latin for days.

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Oh and NPO means nothing by mouth and NPO means - the N stands for Nothing the P stands for per and the O stands for Os. Os meaning mouth. Which is confusing to those who did not study this in nursing school. So NPO means nothing per os - meaning nothing by mouth.

For those of you in OB/GYN OS also means the opening of the cervix.

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Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.

At my last facility I would see people chart "pt scoping sinus rhythm w/out ectopy", but at my new facility no-one has ever heard "scoping" used in that way. I know its referring to what rhythm they are presenting with, but has anyone ever heard it like that?

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The early monitors were actual oscilloscopes, known as scopes. So as opposed to knowing the rhythm only from the paper EKG tracing, this was shorthand (or maybe a neologism) for, "the monitor shows ..."

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
I thought we DID represent it as "noc."

Wait, what is DID an acronym for? :cheeky:

It seems that on AN, NOC is usually capitalized. I'm not a big fan of "noc." Maybe it's a regional thing...we never call it noc around here, and, to me, it seems awkward when it is used in a sentence. "The NOC nurse gave report to me." Just reads kinda weird to me. Just my 2 cents.

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Specializes in Emergency/Trauma/Critical Care Nursing.
The early monitors were actual oscilloscopes, known as scopes. So as opposed to knowing the rhythm only from the paper EKG tracing, this was shorthand (or maybe a neologism) for, "the monitor shows ..."

Thank you GrnTea for your insight! Its been bugging me for years lol, I think it just kept getting passed down during preceptorships and eventually no-one remembered what it meant. :)

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In medical billing and dealing with icd codes

NOC-not otherwise classified, there no other reason or unsure.

NOS- not otherwise specified, it does not fall within the other established sub-types.

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