Cabbages, turps and other acronyms

Medical Matters/Dr Muiris Houston: Such was the response to my last bank-holiday column on medical humour that I have been inveigled…

Medical Matters/Dr Muiris Houston: Such was the response to my last bank-holiday column on medical humour that I have been inveigled into another light-hearted offering. As before, please attribute no "isms" to what follows: ageism or sexism are certainly not implied. I merely wish to share more of the sometimes bizarre world of medicine.

Let's start with the tale of the overly curious medic. "I'm curious why you left your last doctor," he would say to all his new patients, as he often found the reply predictive of their future relationship. On one occasion an attractive young woman replied: "Because he gave me the creeps. He was always staring at me." So the doctor spent the rest of the consultation looking anywhere but at his new patient.

A week later another attractive woman registered with the practice. A quick learner, the GP spent her visit looking around the room - and even noticed that one of his diplomas was missing a signature. Eventually he used his line. "I'm curious why you left your last doctor." "To tell you the truth", she replied, "I never felt I could trust him. He never looked me in the eye."

Student doctors are taught to be aware of the heart-sink patient. The label is self-explanatory: people who make physicians' self-esteem drop. This is usually because they can find nothing medically wrong and yet the person's symptoms continue. It is not a derogatory term but one that reflects extreme professional frustration. But of course doctors are human too. Hence this extract from a consultant neurologist's letter to a GP.

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"This lady's CAT scan and other investigations were normal. She continues to have headaches, but, interestingly, when she went to Cuba they disappeared. The same thing happened during her trip to Poland. I considered putting her on Amitriptyline 25mg at night, but on reflection I am putting her on a plane to Cuba with the suggestion that she book a one-way ticket."

Medicine is full of acronyms. Their use seems to have multiplied with the development of high-tech medicine. So while a patient refers to his heart-bypass operation, a doctor writes CABG, the acronym for coronary-artery bypass grafting, pronounced cabbage. A Turp is a man who is about to have a trans-urethral resection of the prostate performed; in layman's terms his prostate gland will surgically be made smaller to deal with difficulty passing water. Then there is the un-PC chart entry "LOL presented to A/E with SOB and LOC", which translates as "little old lady who came to the accident-and-emergency department with shortness of breath and an episode of loss of consciousness."

Dr Maurice Guéret of Medicine Weekly is putting together a collection of medical acronyms. Some modern versions are a little crude; here are some of the more printable ones. The following are Saturday-night specials from drink-filled casualty departments. FOD: full of drink. FORD: found on the road drunk. WADAO: weak and dizzy all over as a result of an alcohol overdose. I will leave PAFO for you to work out. Heart-sink situations may find expression in RADA: Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, indicating an overly theatrical patient. Someone with TBP - total body pain - could be exaggerating their symptoms.

Here are some old-fashioned acronyms. ISI stands for irregular sexual intercourse. LLL, or love's labour lost, is a gentle way of noting a recent miscarriage.I'm not sure, however, what the Medical Council would make of the politically incorrect NAAFC: nutty as a fruit cake.

Finally, some weird diagnoses: pseudonymphomania is a compulsive desire to have sex using an assumed name. And we have all probably experienced visacarditis, that heart-pounding moment when we open the credit-card bill.

If you have an amusing medical story that you would like to share, I would be grateful to receive it.