pimp

v. (by senior medical personnel) to badger a student doctor with medical questions (as a teaching method). Subjects: English, Medical, Slang

Editorial Note: The more common meanings of to pimp are well-defined elsewhere. Etymological Note: The theory posited in the 1997 citation is plausible but it has the ring of being a fanciful reinterpretation of the term’s history.

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Citations: 1979 Edward A. Lehrman Los Angeles Times (July 2) “The Young Doctors-in-Training: Where Has All the Idealism Gone?” p. C5: There is the tradition called “pimping the student” on rounds—teaching by asking questions on obscure points—which compounds the student’s sense of inadequacy. 1983 Robert S. Broadhead Private Lives and Professional Identity of Medical Students (Dec. 1) p. 28: One hears the stories: about being “pimped” by a resident following one’s presentation of a case (being questioned unmercifully until one’s knowledge is exhausted about a particular syndrome, thus forcing an “I don’t know” response, followed by a “Well, why don’t you know?"). 1987 Vivienne Heines Houston Chronicle (Texas) (July 17) “The making of a Doctor” p. 1: When I started my third year, I thought that pimping was the most horrible thing on Earth.…You are asked questions in front of your peers by the person who makes out your grades in surgery. It’s the worst because you can’t go anywhere. The attending (physician) is operating and asking you stuff under the hot operating room lights. 1997 [Natalie J. Belle] @ Howard University College of Medicine Usenet: misc.education.medical (Sept. 12) “Re: Etymology of the word “Pimping””: I can’t say how long the term “pimping” has been used in medical circles but I first heard the term six years ago when I began working at a teaching hospital. The term comes from the fact that the clinical instructors would “pimp” the medical students as a way of updating their(the clinical professor’s) basic science and epidemology knowledge base. Instead of heading to a library or surfing the net, a clinical professor such as a surgical attending would pick the brain of a third-year medical student who was fresh from the basic science classes. This is analagous to the pimp who makes a living by the prostitution labors of the men and women in his or her stable on the street. 2004 Craig A. Miller Making of a Surgeon in the 21st Century (Jan.) p. 143: Pimping is a term with a specific meaning in medical education, a meaning that has no demonstrable origin—and no clear counterpart in common usage. It is the asking of a student or resident, by an attending, of some question within the broad field of medical knowledge. The implication is of repeated needling, a probing for pockets of ignorance; in fact, pimping is a sort of evil twin or mutant outgrowth of the Socratic method. It is used as much to harass as to teach. 2006 Barron H. Lerner New York Times (Mar. 14) “Young Doctors Learn Quickly in the Hot Seat”: For years, many professors routinely peppered students with relevant and arcane queries, often embarrassing them. Things may be gentler today, but the practice, referred to as the “pimping” of students, still has its advocates. 2006 Lee Sustar CounterPunch (Aug. 31) “The Case of Elvira Arellano”: Some Black voices, however, have joined the anti-immigrant backlash. Among them is Mary Mitchell, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, who denounced Arellano’s comparison of her struggle to that of Rosa Parks, who defied segregation in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955. “As they say in the streets, Arellano is pimping the system,” Mitchell wrote. “She is using Rosa Parks’ name to buy herself more time, and that disgusts me.”

Posted 16 Mar 06 | Permalink | Tell a Friend