Editor—The article on medical slang by Fox et al is fascinating.1 The use of slang in clinical practice (and not just medical practice) is quite widespread.
Firstly, slang can express the clinician's view of the patient's personality and behaviour. Examples of these include
Dysphorics
Black holes
Medical care abusers
Bothersome
Manipulative
Problem
Trouble
Butterflies
Secondly, slang can have pejorative undertones. Some labels used by clinicians have a distinctive pejorative nature, for example:
Trolls
Turkeys
Rubbish
Odd
Patients from hell
Thirdly, acronyms and adaptive humour are used. A large part of the slang used by clinicans is adaptive. Much of this type of slang is witnessed in accident and emergency departments, for example:
Gomer (get out of my emergency room)
Tatt (talks all the time)
Tatt (tired all the time)
Rabbit (rabbits on)
Teeth (tried everything try homeopathy)
Sig (stroppy ignorant girl)
Ttfo (tell them to f*&%k off)
Pafo (pissed and fell over)
Grolies (Guardian reader of limited intelligence in ethnic skirt)
Oap (overanxious patient)
All of these terms have been recorded within the medical literature and in my unpublished thesis.2
References
- 1.Fox AT, Cahill P, Fertleman M. Medical slang. BMJ. 2002;324(classified suppl):S179. (Career focus). (8 June.) [Google Scholar]
- 2.McDonald PS. Unpublished PhD thesis. Nottingham: University of Nottingham; 1994. The heartsink problem in general practice. [Google Scholar]