Words You Hate

Updated:   Published

nurses-any-words-you-hate.jpg.b4c0e304596bb7ce12e025038033b9db.jpg

Is there a medical word that you absolutely hate? Or one that you can never seem to pronounce correctly?

Hate:

  • Meatus. (Eww)
  • Gargle.

Mispronounce:

Prophylaxis. I ALWAYS say prophylaxicks.

I have a co-worker that says Cefazolin wrong and is convinced she is right. Drives me nuts.

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

Pendulous? This accurately describes a certain part of my anatomy![emoji23]

I looked up pulmonary toilet to confirm the meaning. We use pulmonary hygiene a great deal!

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg, Psych, Geri, LTC, Tele,.
And your senior team agreed to the use of "juicy cough" in the documentation? Very odd.

Productive cough. Wet cough. Those are better. Juicy cough makes me giggle!

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.

"excubate" instead of extubate

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Broad range, mental health, school nursi.

The word "flaccid" always makes me giggle. For some weird reason.

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Telemetry.
nursel56 said:

Pendulous (it's hanging and it could theoretically swing? oh no, uh-uh )

Ha! For some reason, this reminds me of when my badge clip had a retractable string, and I put a few too many keys, cards and the like on it.

When I would lean over a patient to turn or clean, my ID had a tendency to pull down, hang, and swing. Usually near or *in* something it had no business being close to.  I finally wised up and fixed it.

(Yes, it also made me think of other "things") 

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in ICU.
"excubate" instead of extubate

How about "incubate" instead of "intubate"?

This is usually the family's mistake, but it's still hilarious. "They incubated Gramma last year!" It would be nails on a chalkboard for me if someone in healthcare said it, though.

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×

Sometimes people in their speech will form an imagined verb from orientation and say orientate. At best, orientate is a back-formation used humorously to make the speaker sound pompous. The correct word is the verb orient. 

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
snicosia43 said:
Sometimes people in their speech will form an imagined verb from orientation and say orientate. At best, orientate is a back-formation used humorously to make the speaker sound pompous. The correct word is the verb orient. englishplus.com/grammar/00000245.htm

That's been mentioned a few times on this thread but I love your bolded definition.

Same thing applies to centimeter and son-ta-meter.

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Cardiac ICU, ER, PICU, Corrections.

Sputum and feces lol

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Emergency.

Cream and affidavit

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Private Duty Pediatrics.
Actually heard a surgeon tell a postop patient they were going to check his tummy. Like really?

I use words like tummy and potty frequently. But then, I'm a pediatric nurse.

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×

That pronunciation of meto-prolol drives me nuts too!

1
Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion