Next time you’re at a hospital, listen for staffer’s code slang like suitcase sign, meaning “the patient is determined to check himself in no matter what,” or a gown sign, meaning they suspect a patient of getting ready to...
Good night, nurse! is an old-fashioned exclamation for surprise, disbelief, or frustration, and Debbie in Dallas, Texas, uses it as a cussword substitute. An early example dates to 1908, close to British lexicographer Eric Partridge’s estimate of...
kangarooing n.— «But Colton never came home to the picture-perfect nursery his parents had set up for him. Instead, Donny and Amy Chilla and their parents spent hours cradling Colton, in a practice known as “kangarooing,” as...
multimorbidity n.— «People with multiple health problems—a condition known as multimorbidity—are largely overlooked both in medical research and in the nation’s clinics and hospitals. The default position is to treat complicated patients...
CASH n.— «He soon found himself in a Combat Area Support Hospital—or CASH, as they call it. It was a dusty tent, covering a plywood floor laid out over sand.» —“This Pacesetter Soldiers On” by Joe Henderson Tampa...
PnP n.— «Antonio Urbina, who is medical director of HIV/AIDS training at St. Vincent Hospital’s HIV center in New York’s Greenwich Village, says he’s seen two patients who have taken HIV drugs before going out for “PnP,” or “party and...