I was thinking about times when patients use medical terminology that is a little different than what we would expect. Here are a few examples:
A patient had his "goldbladder" removed.
A patient with CAD s/p heart stent had "heart springs".
I had a patient who had a "cadillac" (cataract) removed from their eye.
One of my favorites: when a patient has "the gout".
Or there are the ever popular names for certain body parts, such as the lady who wanted to make sure her gown was tied so her "goody bits" wouldn't show. I know there are more I have heard but can't think of them know.
Re names for boy parts & girl parts - in DH Lawrence's novel, Lady Chatterly's Lover. the main character lovers referred to their genitalia by their names for each other as Lady Jane and John Thomas.
I've heard Lady Jane used as a term to scold someone, like "look here Missy, look here Lady Jane". Just cracks me up.
This is funny because just today in my psych class there were some people doing presentations on chapters out of the book. They butchered all of the medical terms. Some that I thought were common knowledge were in fact not by this group. It was driving me crazy and I so wanted to correct them but kept my mouth shut. But they seriously butchered the anatomy and physiology part of it. Like saying contraception when they meant to say conception. That's kind of an oxymoron I thought. It was bad.
The class know it all in one of our first nursing classes was reading aloud from our textbook and kept pronouncing the word "organism" as "orgasm". The entire class was trying to not bust out in giggles and I looked up to see our instructor trying to stop laughing long enough to correct her, it took her awhile to get it together.
From my office days in women's health: I heard a plethora of terms for the word lady parts, many have been posted already, but my favorites were: Lady Business, cootie and cookie. Junk was the popular term for the gents during that time. I had a coworker that would always say PhenerGRAN, that drove me bananas. My own grandma called Tylenol-"Tynnol" til the day she died, bless her heart, she also completely believed Tynnol cured everything. Got the sniffles? You better take some Tynnol! Rash on your arm? Tynnol coming right up, you'll be better in no time.
I think it must be regional then. I've seen cardiac surgeons fly into fits when some brand new resident refers to a CABG as "open heart" surgery.
Perhaps it is regional,....I'm in the midwest, CABG is open heart as opposed to closed,...the chest is open,...there is also an open chole vs lap chole, open appy etc.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
Perhaps it is regional,....I'm in the midwest, CABG is open heart as opposed to closed,...the chest is open,...there is also an open chole vs lap chole, open appy etc.
So perhaps the correct term is open CHEST surgery as opposed to open HEART.
I've heard Lady Jane used as a term to scold someone, like "look here Missy, look here Lady Jane". Just cracks me up.
My mom and my grandmother both would say 'listen up Missy Jane" or "lose the attitude Lady Jane' and things to that effect all the time.
Now as a mother of two girls, I always say that. When I'm giving them fair warning its Lady/Missy Jane, when they've crossed the line I use their first and middle names.
Actually my little one asked me just yesterday after saying to her 'listen up Missy Jane..I told you something..I didn't ask a question so there is no need for debate', she said Momma, WHY! Why do you call me that when you know my name is XXXXX.
Instead of groin my grandmother would say "groan" I think it had to do with her accent. She was from the back woods of TN. If someone actually said groin she didn't understand what they were talking about unless they called it a "groan" lol
My dear grandmother was truly from the backwoods. Think Deliverance. She had some interesting terms. Deaf was pronounced "deef" with a long E. Vomit was always vomick.
One I hear a lot (from nurses and patients, it's definitely a regional thing) is "eat up with" as in "He is just eat up with poison ivy." It means he has a very, very bad case of it. "They opened her up and then just closed her right back because she was just eat up with the cancer."
A daddy had a question about his baby's umbilical cord, but he kept calling it his "unbiblical" cord. I wondered what heretical ideas that poor cord stump had espoused.
Epidural is another word that is absolutely mangled. The absolute best, though is "happydural". I've also heard "opadural" "empadural" and "spinal tap".
Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN
20,908 Posts
How about a physic....to mean a laxative.