'Secret' Codes Doctors Use To Talk About You // DOCTOR REACTS

What are doctors saying behind your back?! Just for a bit of fun we're going to break down an article from UniLAD all about "The Secret Codes Doctors Use To Talk About You"... being a doctor, this was news to me! So let's react to the article and talk about what it gets right and what it gets wrong!

And then we'll talk about the "secret" codes that you might ACTUALLY see.

Article is here:

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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Welcome!
00:25 Unilad article: link in description
00:48 Ever wondered what doctors really think of you?
01:38 P.A.F.O
2:38 ETOH
03:04 Eiffel Tower Syndrome
04:10 Whinorrhea
05:!4 Heartsink
05:32 Review Mrs Buckstar
06:11 "Secret Codes" that ACTUALLY exist
06:41 BIBA
06:49 FOOSH
06:56 SOB
07:07 T2DM, HTN, ASD
07:32 THANKS FOR WATCHING EVERYONE! I forgot to say 'like and subscribe'

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Clips used under fair use (education and review):

This Is Going To Hurt © 2022 BBC Studios

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Song 'Escapists' by The AutoDisko

#DoctorReacts #Unilad #ThisIsGoingToHurt

[groofay]

The secret codes that are so secret, the doctors don't even know them!

[Kubrzesz]

To be honest, the fact that one day Ed will stop introducing himself as junior doctor or the one that he will be a junior doctor all his life are equally unsettling.

But keep going, always pleasure to watch your stuff. Junior doctor or not 😂

[j.rinker]

In the U.S., I've heard of "GOMER" for "get out of my emergency room"--i.e. a patient who doesn't really belong in the emergency department, as their condition is not urgent, and morgue attendants referring to burn victims as "crispy critters" (presumably out of hearing of bereaved relatives).

[MacEwanMouse]

I had a panic attack once, I had no idea what was going on, didn't understand the symptoms, didn't really care to google anything at the time. My extremities went numb, my heart was pounding, and I was riding a dangerous level of nausea that convinced me to go to the hospital. Once I got there and they started doing vitals and bloodwork, it all subsided, and it was crushing, I almost wished something was actually wrong, because test after test came up negative and I realized it was just my mind playing tricks on me. I apologized profusely for being a hypochondriac and wasting everyone's time, but all the staff were very reassuring and repeatedly told me that it was better for me to show up and have nothing wrong, than to have something actually wrong and NOT show up.

I'm glad the medical community is mostly, I say mostly because every field has exceptions, but mostly part of a culture that encourages managing your health, benign or serious, and doesn't try to poke fun at you behind seemingly closed doors. I felt crushed enough knowing that I had a moment of anxiety, instead of a real medical emergency, if I found out the staff was bashing me behind the scenes, I don't know, I feel like that's how you start a culture that encourages people to stay home and try to tough it out instead of potentially facing ridicule, no matter how dire the situation is. Fear of death is strong, but fear of humiliation is nothing to laugh at.

Thank you for perpetuating a professional way of doctoring, I hope your patients feel as welcome and in good hands as I did when I had my moment.

[IrelandFyre]

OH! I had a nurse once take one look at me, pick up a phone, and then state code black or grey or something (I wasn't fully coherent) and the next thing I knew I was in a wheelchair being ran down a hallway to a room with ten people standing in a half circle around the head of the bed... Absolutely terrifying. But I was apparently grey with purple lips and purple circles around my eyes and they assumed I was about to be dead. It was an asthma attack with an underlying chest infection and my very first ever EKG

[LilytheFrilly]

I cant really think of any "codes" other than the usual medically related shorthand that you mentioned like SOB or CVS. I heard from some American doctors/surgeons that they refer non-ambulence drop offs at the ER that involves gunshot wounds as the "homie drop" though.

A nursing instructor told me how she used to work at a place that had computer on wheels, or COW for short. A patient misheard her talking about needing to chart on the COW and thought she was calling them a cow. Needless to say, we don't use that acronym anymore.

[WouldntULikeToKnow.]

I don't think enough people realize that they have a legal right to their medical records. They aren't a secret, you can request them.

[Prizzlesticks]

I kind of hate articles like this. Like, I regularly put off seeing my doctor for issues that are concerning but probably not life-threatening because I don't want to annoy him or take up too much time. I also hate when a small issue turns out to be nothing, or else ends up stamped as idiopathic and given a 'idk, monitor it I guess' treatment outcome. So I avoid my doctor at all cost.

He's actually a fantastic guy, if incredibly overworked because of the patient-to-doctor ratio, and this aversion stems more from my past PCPs or doctors and articles like this. Most patients don't want to be taken lightly, they don't want to be made fun of, and they don't want to distrust their doctor. If you already suffer from depression or BPD or trauma or abuse, you might be wary to trust what people tell you to your face, even your doctor, and wonder if they hate or tease you behind closed doors. It's exhausting and causes so much unnecessary anxiety, and this utter tripe only serves to perpetuate that paranoia.

[drdurchblick]

In Germany, we have a few that we would never write in notes but use in casual conversation sometimes... 'C2 abuse' for alcohol abuse, 'logorrhea' for patients that won't stop talking, 'very private' for privately insured pts who are very demanding. And then some other stuff like asking whether the patient has frontal lobe lesions when they're being particularly rude or weird.

[EibaProductions]

In my hospital, they use the Acronym "C2" for alcoholism. It stands for the chemical structure of ethanol: C2H5OH.
There are also other abbreviations like AHT (arterial hypertension), St.p. (Status post), AE (Appendektomy), CHE (Cholecytektomy), TE (Tonsillektomie), THE (Thyroidektomy), DMII (Diabetes mellitus type 2), etc.

I however don't like abreviations and usually write them out. Especially as quite a lot of other health care providers from other departments are sometimes not aware of abbreviations and need to ask. And sometimes noone on the ward knows the meaning behind an abbreviation.

[orangew]

I could list probably 100 abbreviations I use/read at work (more often in handovers than actual patient notes) but none of them are ones I wouldn't mind saying directly to a patient.
Abbreviations can be really mysterious when you move wards, but they often mean very boring things.

As a student I spent ages trying to work out what MWF and TTS meant on a renal ward. Turns out it's the days the patient usually has dialysis!

[abzdabz]

When I was 16 I went to a Get into Medicine seminar where a consultant told us some secret acronyms like FLK (funny looking kid), NFX (normal for *insert local place name here*) and TFBUNDY (totally f'ed but unfortunately not dead yet)

I've never seen any of them used even verbally in real practice

[allankolenovsky]

The first rule of Fight Club is "do not talk about Fight Club". We're on to you Doc! You are trying to gaslight us! I may not be a medical doctor but I stayed at a Holiday Inn, so I know a lot about medicine! (For those who are humor-challenged, this entire bit I have just written is purely tongue in cheek).

[joanhoffman]

Here are some terms from U.S. hospitals: GOMER — Get Out of My Emergency Room; CTD — Circling The Drain; PITA — Pain In The A$$; Acapulco Syndrome — the Half Acapulco: patient’s hands are behind the head, the Full Acapulco: hands behind the head, legs crossed. This indicates that this person is very relaxed and not in tremendous pain. These terms are disrespectful, to say the least, and I’m sure not all healthcare workers use them. Remember, we are all human beings, and, yes, we get stressed out, but kindness, patience, and understanding can help a lot in stressful situations.

[Blackmore]

Im not a doctor, but I am currently working as a research assistant in laboratory medicine and our lab is next to the hospital. I get forward a bunch of hospital updates, including code Zebra, which seem to denote patients that wandered off, are missing, or have hightailed it. Happens a lot more often then you would think.

[aaryaherlekar]

Good to see medical news back again! We need more of this.

[windshadetarn]

The only code we had in the hospital was VIP. It meant homeless person brought by police that smells so bad you have to put them in to VIP room, meaning one lone room separate form the others so VIP will not disturb bersonel and other patients. Usually those were drunk as hell homeless people, Less common was hypotermia of the homeless person but sometimes happen.

[chiarardn]

In my unit we use "cabbage" as a code for CABG (coronary-aortic bypass graft), but once it backfired on us, because the relative of a patient heard us and thought we were calling her father a cabbage, due to his being paralysed. We explained and she accepted our explanation, but it was still a super-awkward moment!
Instead a friend of mine, who works in a NICU (neonatal ICU), told me that in Australia they use FLK for funny-looking kid, when they receive a newborn who has some kind of syndrome that probably won't be diagnosed until much later. It sounds harsh and personally I'd never use it, but it's common practice over there.

[AliceSylph]

Honestly as someone with psychogenic non-epileptic seizures, I worry a lot of how medical staff think of me, especially as I live on a small island with only a very small hospital. A lot of medical staff haven't been taught about them, and when they learn it's not epilepsy and there's nothing they can really do except obs until I'm fully conscious, mobile and can care for myself, I really worry they think badly of me; I'm worried I'm wasting their time so wouldn't be surprised if they think that too. Luckily I've only had one medical person treat me as if I was faking it, only found out because they had to explain to me how I busted my lip: they decided to do the "hand fall" test to prove I was faking my seizure 🤦‍♀️

[Colopty]

My favorite code doctors use is "wow this guy has to be the stupidest human being I've ever met", which means that they approve my request to drink the bag of weird tasting apple juice.