Medical Slang, Jargon, and New Words from Double-Tongued Dictionary

Medical, medicinal, hospital-related, etc. You can also see entries assigned to this category.

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bleep n. Affectionately called a “bleep”—because that is all it seems to do from dawn until dusk and throughout the night as well—it symbolises the fear of the unknown for the wary junior doctor. [English Medical Technology Slang] [full cite] (Jul. 19, 2006)

blue call n. While the questioning was going on, we were assessing the baby. She was unconscious, and when we pricked the heal of her foot to check her blood sugar level, she grimaced but didn’t cry.…We were going to take Emily in on blue lights, asking control to let the hospital know what had happened and how long we would be so they could be ready. This is known in London as a “Blue Call.” I changed the channel on the radio in the car to listen for the crew putting in the blue call—that would be my signal that they were ready to go, then we set off. [English United Kingdom Medical Jargon] [full cite] (May. 25, 2006)

boarding n. Another problem plaguing the ER is bed availability. Patients must be kept in an ER bed while waiting for one to open up on the surgical floor. This process, called “boarding,” makes ailing people in the ER lobby sit, or stand, even longer. [English Medical Jargon] [full cite] (Jul. 7, 2006)

body habitus n. In an effort to quantify how obesity affects diagnostic imaging quality, Dr. Uppot and colleagues analyzed radiology records from a 15-year span at MGH. They searched for incomplete exams that carried the label “limited by body habitus,” meaning limited in quality due to patient size. [English Medical Jargon] [full cite] (Aug. 1, 2006)

booby Jacuzzi n. By gently warming her breast, her doctors unleashed the cell-killing compounds in the vicinity of the tumor without poisoning the rest of her body. All she had to do was lie face down on a padded table, her affected breast protruding through an opening into a tub of warm water. Then she blissed out to the music of Yanni while radio waves heated the breast to Jacuzzi temperature. “Most patients really enjoy the table,” says Dr. Kimberly Blackwell, the medical oncologist at Duke University who treated Link. Patients have even coined their own name for it—the “booby Jacuzzi.” [English Medical Slang] [full cite] (May. 5, 2004)

bottom surgery n. Rey always expected to go off-campus for his transition. He wound up being operated on by a private surgeon in New York City. (He received no “bottom surgery,” as it is known—few transmen do, in part because the operation is thought to be too rudimentary and in part because many transmen view it as unnecessary.) [English Medical Sex & Sexuality] [full cite] (Mar. 15, 2008)

C diff n. We are told that 60,000 hospital patients this year will catch the superbug Clostridium difficile.…Cases of “C diff,” as it is known in the trade, have risen by 22 per cent in the past year, affecting more than 15,500 people over 65. [English Medical Jargon] [full cite] (Jul. 26, 2007)

cabbage n. The most common surgeries used to be tonsillectomy and hysterectomy. Today it’s Cardiac Bypass or “cabbage” in doctor speak, which ironically is the result of not eating any. [English Medical Slang] [full cite] (Mar. 22, 2007)

CAM n. People still use what has come to be called complementary and alternative medicine ("CAM"), and many don’t tell their doctors. [English Health Medical Acronym] [full cite] (Apr. 23, 2005)

capper n. This type of fraud—which draws on a web of doctors, surgery center owners and staff, and patient recruiters known as “cappers”—is hard to spot and stop. [English Medical] [full cite] (Jul. 11, 2005)

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