crock n.— «Hospital staff privately refer to them as “crocks”—people who repeatedly show up in emergency rooms demanding expensive, exhaustive tests to unearth the elusive cause of their numerous symptoms. Reassurance that their tests...
COW n.— «Doctors and nurses at Moses Cone Hospital refer to them as COWs—computers on wheels. Basically a wireless laptop on a cart, the computers are helping to save time and paper by letting doctors and nurses update charts and view X...
Haitian happiness n.— «At breakfast I learned that Chuck was ill. Dr. Paul put him on an IV so that he would not be dehydrated. Diarrhea is called “Haitian Happiness,” but Chuck did not look very happy.» —“The...
domino organ transplant n.— «Clinton House and John Couch—medical history’s first “domino” organ transplant patients—met Thursday for the first time at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.…House…received a heart...
mets n.— «There is no stage V. It was the worst of all news—”as bad as it can get,” confirmed the nurse at the Middlesex Hospital who rang to inform me that the CT scan had revealed mets (metastases, or spread) in my liver...
primip n.— «Primip. First born.» —“Hospital Workers’ Slang and Jargon” by Hospital Workers in New York City. Also, Virginia and Arkansas. in New York City Lexicon of Trade Jargon , 1938-39. (source: Double...