Doctor speak
What does it all mean?
By Dave Moller, davem@theunion.com
» More from Dave Moller
12:01 a.m. PT Apr 4, 2008
So you're lying down at the doctor's office or the hospital, possibly scared, and the physician turns to the nurse and says something like, "Take an EKG, get a Chem 7, and then we'll get an MRI."
If you're like most patients, you figure the doctor knows what he's talking about. But it's all in medical jargon, and you wonder, "What in tarnation did he mean?"
Translation: He just asked the nurse to measure your heart activity, to order a battery of seven tests checking your blood chemistry, and to see what ails you with a big, donut-shaped machine that uses magnetic fields and radio frequencies to take a picture of your insides.
Believe it or not, most doctors are aware their acronyms and jargon can be confusing, so they try not to use them too much around patients. But people in every occupation often speak their own abbreviated language among themselves.
"It happens all the time," said Dr. Joseph Britton, the director of emergency services at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital. "The last patient I saw, I said she had diverticulitis, (which is an inflammation or infection in the colon) and her husband laughed and said, 'What the heck is that?'
"It is a completely different language, and when we get going fast, we could do a better job of explaining it to our patients," Britton said. "We forget it's not second nature to everybody else."
A sense of humor helps Dr. Jeff Van Tassells through his day at the same emergency room in Grass Valley, and he sometimes finds a chuckle in the jargon that surrounds him.
"To a medical person, an EMT calls from the scene and says they have a patient with SOB, that means shortness of breath," Van Tassell said. "But if a patient hears that, they might not understand."
Kidding aside, he said, "You have to be careful to not use medical jargon so you don't scare people. We also have written instructions for patients because of that.
"We try to communicate the best we can, but it's hard during a stressful work day," Van Tassell said.
To contact Senior Staff Writer Dave Moller, e-mail dmoller@theunion or call 477-4237.
n All of the following information was taken from the Web site "Medspeak: The language of the ER," and the online medical dictionary MediLexicon.
• ASA is an aspirin.
• BP is blood pressure.
• CBC is an all-purpose blood test.
• Defibrillation restores heart muscle rhythm.
• EEG is a brain activity measurement.
• Foley is a catheter placed to drain the bladder.
• Gram's stain is a test that identifies various forms of bacterial microorganisms.
• Hypoxia is a severe lack of
oxygen in the tissues and blood.
• IV push is injecting medicine rapidly into a vein to simultaneously saturate the blood system; IV means intra-venous, or in the vein.
• KUB is short for kidney, ureter and bladder tests.
• Lac is short for laceration.
• Myocardial infarction is a heart attack.
• NPO means nothing by mouth.
• O neg is type O blood that any patient can receive without problems.
• Palp is blood pressure taken by pulse during an emergency.
• Quinlan Test is a test for bile.
• Renogram is a kidney x-ray.
• Sepsis is an extreme infection.
• Thrombosis is a blood clot.
• UTI means urinary tract infection.
• Venipuncture is taking blood from a vein.
• W-plasty is a surgery to improve a scar using w-shaped cuts.
• Xerosis is abnormal eyeball, skin or mucous membrane dryness.
• YPLL is the abbreviation for years of potential life lost.
• Z-protein is a protein that binds and helps move fatty acids in cells.
- Dave Moller,
Senior Staff Writer
