Nurse Code

Today at work I realized that nurses and medical personal say a lot of interesting sayings/phrases that don’t really make since to non-medical folk. We have all our medical jargon and talk that we spend years on learning and understanding which totally confuses most people at times. But there is the little quirks and phrases that are used sometimes that totally throw people off as well.

So I had an older patient today who totally almost gave me a panic attack twice today as well as influencing this post. I was texting a friend and said: “I almost had a patient fall on me today”. Then the response I got back was “that sucks I hope they were skinny and not 400+ pounds.” Which is what I totally didn’t mean. So I ask a co-worker what I meant by my statement and she knew that my patient almost fell on to the floor today. But I can see how it was misconceiving. J Another phrase I noticed nurses also say a lot is: “The patient is on (or back on) the floor.” Which means that the patient is on the medical unit not the actual floor. I can’t help but laugh because it seems like we are talking in code.

One of my favorite sayings is: “That’s my kryptonite” meaning I can pretty much deal with everything but that. In my case mucus, ugh…makes me gag just thinking about it.

Anyway, are there any more phrases that nurses or medical people use that I’m not remembering? It seems like I just say these things as a second nature instead of stopping and thinking about it.

It could be a Staceyism but I think I’m on to something…

OHH and don’t forget about the initials: FLK J