Endorse Where did this term come from?

[Irving]

I see the term "endorse" more and more in medical notes and I fail to understand its use. I can infer the meaning when one writes:

"The patient endorses having a headache all day."

I have never heard it used like this before. I have checked numerous dictionaries and nothing shows an applicable definition. Truly, the above example would mean "The pt thinks it is great to have a headache all day!"

I guess in the larger picture this is just a stupid pet peeve but I was wondering if it bothered anyone else, or, if anyone feels it is a perfect reasonable use for the word and why.

It just seems odd that I have only noticed this over the last few years and I have never seen it anywhere other then in a nursing note, or the odd MD's note. I don't believe the usage to be correct but would certainly endorse a well reasoned argument or documentation that supports this usage. (Did you see what I did there? That was a correct usage of the word "endorse." You could remove "endorse" and replace it with "support" and the sentence still works.

And, hey, if you have noticed anything annoying that people document or say, please tell me here. It will be something else for me to fret over. Say like the use of "Orientated" vs. "Oriented."

[JKL33]

Well, my personal fave is "his stats are low" or "She's statting 100%"

Just painful.

I've seen "endorse". Oxford dictionaries list "confirm" and "maintain" as synonyms and I'd guess that is the intended usage in your example, iow the patient continues to assert that s/he has had the headache all day.

[Julius Seizure]

When patient's family members talk about how we "incubated" their loved with with a breathing tube. Apparently later on we are going to "excubate" them.

Had a patient with a feeding tube lately who was getting bolus feeds, or as his mother described them, "ebola feeds".

[caliotter3]

At my first nursing job, my Filipino coworkers used the word "endorse" to convey that they were turning over care to the oncoming shift. I never asked them where they got that usage. We all used it and nobody in management ever told any of us that it was incorrect. Ex: "In stable condition when care endorsed to oncoming nurse." Last line of the note. I sometimes still use it. It sounds nice. At least to me.

[Julius Seizure]

At my first nursing job, my Filipino coworkers used the word "endorse" to convey that they were turning over care to the oncoming shift. I never asked them where they got that usage. We all used it and nobody in management ever told any of us that it was incorrect. Ex: "In stable condition when care endorsed to oncoming nurse." Last line of the note. I sometimes still use it. It sounds nice. At least to me.

It makes sense in this context to me. You are kind of signing off that handoff has been given and the new nurse has been prepared to care for the patient. Or, endorsing like a check -- you are signing over the chart to the next nurse. Like when you endorse a check and hand it over to the bank.