Hi Folks,
The one I use the most:
“Circling the Drain” to describe a patient who is not doing so well.
Others in this category are:
“He has his ticket punched”
“He is in the Eternal Care Unit or ECU”
“He is sicker than a sac of SH-T"
When a patient needs to be intubated: " He needs to bite the tube"
When a patient needs surgery: " He needs bright lights and cold steel"
When a patient needs hemodialysis: " He needs a spin and dry cycle”
When a patient has expired: " He is in a maximum state of entropy"
Cutting into an aneurysm: "Stabbing the sausage"
When you want a nurse to page you with results: " Jerk my electronic leash"
Nutrition Rounds = Breakfast (we don’t get lunch)
Liver Rounds = Drinks on Friday evening
Air Rounds = Golf on Wednesday afternoon
Hell = Vascular Surgery Clinic
Fat Pass = Gastric Bypass
Keyhole Fat Pass = Laparoscopic Gastric Bypass
Herndog = Hernia
Fleas = Internal Medicine Physicians
Philistine = Surgeon as in OrthoPhilistine and NeuroPhilistine
Code Brown = A very large bowel movement (usually liquid)
Types of patients:
Disgusting patient: “That patient is a real earthsphere” instead of "Dirtball"
Redneck patient: "Member of the Loyal order of the Crimson Nape"
PITA = Pain In The A–
Let’s add to the list folks!
Natalie
rectocranial inversion: someone with his head up his a$$
‘light’ someone up: patient about to be defibbed/cardioverted
’singing moon river’ or ‘moon river’: patient having rectal exam
’too beaucoup’: having to downsize an endotracheal tube because first tube too big
’ran towards the light’: person who expired
’run away from the light’: yelled encouragement during codes - about as effective as epi 
Funny thread Nat!
- Tae
“Bag, tag & ship” - expired patient ready to be moved to morgue
FLK - funny lookin kid, needs a genetic screen done
"Bottom Feeders" - the dregs of society that populate my ER all w/e long
"Keeper of the collective Neuron" - charge nurse
"Snot Jockey" - Respiratory Therapist
"Fetus Fetcher" - Neonatal transport team
"Toaster Head" - will submit by request only
"Slingin Cocktails" - what an RT does during the height of asthma season in the ER
"Hopamine" - slang for dopamine and what the patient’s family is doing when they do on it
"V-cubed cocktail" - Vecuronium, Versed and a Ventilator
"FUBAR" - F%#&ed Up Beyond All Repair (in LR, this is an actual, off-paper, paramedic service call - you know it’s gonna be bad!!!
“Riding the Washing Machine” - Pt on a high-frequency oscillating ventilator
"Swoop & Scoop" - Transport slang for a transport that was totally unnecessary
"Gun & Knife Club" - Gang Bangers playing around
"Lung Cookies" - large, thick chunks ‘O’ sputum
"Neck Ups" - alternate term for ‘bottom feeders’, shortened version of ‘dead from the neck up’
“Go Go Juice” - vasoactive medications (epi, dopa, dobutamine & isuprel)
“Gomers” - pt w/ minimal to zero brain function – can frequently apply to family as well
"Os & Qs Syndrome" - similar to ‘gomer’
“IQ Zoo” - Feeder & grower section of the neonatal ICU
I will come up with more & post them ASAP
“Ripe Melon” = urine bag is full
"Overipe Melon" = better empty the thing — QUICK!!
“Code Yellow” = pt has episode of urinary incontinence in the bed
"Code Brown" = pt has pooped in bed or filled the bedpan
"Yellow Road" or “Yellow Trail” = catheterized
"Tub a Tube" = patient bedbath for someone on a vent
"Post Care" = patient died…get them to the “Research Lab” = morgue
…I’m finding the MICU has a lot of ‘codes’ and buzzwords…not all of which I like. Some are funny though 
Hey Folks,
Dave remined me of a couple that I forgot to list:
Hock a lugie in this cup = I need a sputum sample
"Gomer grow" or “Banana bag” = the yellow TPN
“Fingerwave” = rectal exam
" Swimming in butt pus" = the specialty of all surgical interns (Draining a perirectal abscess)
Ah Mary! I see that you are catching onto the lingo pretty fast too. Now isn’t this fun? 
Tae, I love the “Running toward the light” I will incorporate this one immediately. 
Natalie
| QUOTE (Mary Bois Byrne @ Dec 31 2002, 09:50 AM) |
| ....I'm finding the MICU has a lot of 'codes' and buzzwords...not all of which I like. Some are funny though :lol: |
Mary B-B,
Some of these 'codes', esp to a rookie, will seem cruel and heartless. However, if you analyze it -- this sort of dark humor is a way to depersonalize what you are doing in order to maintain your objectivity and to give yourself some "personal distance" as a mechanism of self-defense. Working in healthcare, esp in the higher acuity areas: ICU, PICU, CCU, NICU..., is a very strenuous emotional roller coaster. The people who enter this profession learn 'dark humor' is one way of preserving your 'self' in the face of all of the emotional turmoil of people who are ill. Think of it, literally in a matter of walking a few feet, you can go from a family experiencing the absolute worst thing imaginable to another one who have had a joyous event -- two emotional extremes. As the healthcare professional, you have to be able to communicate and empathize with both of them...hell, you may be taking care of both of them! In order to protect your sanity, even though you are personally highly vested in your patients & family, you must also maintain a certain degree of detachment. That degree depends upon the circumstances at hand. If you're handing parents their first child after helping deliver it, who could not help but allow a tear to venture down their face?
However, if you're coding a 17-year old car crash victim, you got to have your head in the game and you cannot be distracted by the immense tragedy unfolding before you -- you go to be sharp and on! Here, you are striving to maintain your objectivity...this patient's life depends upon it.
Phrases such as these are but one mechanism of how we, the people who have devoted our lives to the health of the people around us, maintain our own emotional health. In healthcare, you will learn to walk a line b/t being emotionally involved with your patients and professional distance. If you allow medicine to creep into every facet of your own existence, eventually it will begin to wear "you" away.
Sorry to corrupt the funny nature of this thread, but Mary's reply prompted me to clarify our perspective. I just don't want anyone here to think badly of those of us who are "veterans" because of our dark humor. Rest assured, you will also develop this...I will bet you a month's salary on that! More importantly, I know that you will not find any people who are any more devoted to their patients' welfare than those of us who have posted these one-liners.
Now...off with this mantle of seriousness and back to the HUMOR!!!!
Don’t know about US hospitals, but here a ‘code brown’ is an actual code. It’s a hazmat code.
Ironic, isn’t it?
Natalie
I agree with Dave that humor helps take the edge off of things. I don’t think people take offense (yet I will personally slug whoever refers to me as a LOL in my later years!! 
).
At the hospital, we also have “Code Orange”, which means “get security up here now”. The joke goes that you call security…then wait two hours for them to show up!
A dentist friend of mine talks about “sneaky pus”…this is the stuff that flies out of an abcess in a patient’s mouth and manages to make contact with my friend’s skin, hair, mouth or eyes…despite his eyeglasses and PPE’s! Take home message: lots of bodily fluids are sneaky.
Take care everyone!
Speaking of bodily fluids, one of instructors in respiratory terrorist school (she was quite the flake!), always wore a HUGE pin-on button the read in large print:
If it is wet, warm and not yours – WEAR GLOVES!
As uncooth as that was…yes, she wore it always - including in patient care areas where the patients were concious…we all found it quite humorous. Of course, the magnitude of the humor was a mix of the button, her persistent early 70s attire, Lurch-like personna and her genuinely other flakey qualities. As one would guess, she was absolutely brilliant, but completely lost in the real-world. Rumor had it that she was so clinically incompetent as a staff RT that she was relegated to the teaching role largely in the interest of patient safety! After watching her work the vents, I came to accept that rumor. However, she knew virtually everything there was to know and taught it to novices very well.
Road Pizza: pt who has had a massive trauma in an MVA.
Worm food: pt who has expired
Tango Uniform: toes up, dead, expired, et al
Bringing in a pharmocology student: transporting a drug addict
Driving Miss Daisy: transporting a nursing home pt to the hospital
Organ donor: pt who is brain dead
Adams Family: pts family who creep everyone out