Ever felt extremely confused in the doctor's chamber because of some undecipherable terminology? Chances are high that your doctor was – in fact – insulting you.
Over the years, doctors have mastered a whole new vocabulary to discreetly talk about problem patients, communicate not so positive updates or even discuss about children. But as it turns out, in medicine, this slang is more than just harmless jargon.
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Studies have revealed that a doctor's attitude or discrimination can have a real effect on the treatment they receive and how well they recover.
And while medical schools have started recruiting more diverse students to change the culture, Daily Mail Online reports – as several doctors confessed to them – there's still a strong bias when it comes to how doctors treat their patients.
Dr Peter Muennig and Dr Alex Green of Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, believe this medical discrimination is harmful, and therefore, it could always be handy for patients to be aware of some of these jargons in case a doctor might try to mask a situation or straight up insult them.
GOMER: Meaning 'get [them] out of my emergency room' Dr Muenning believes this has been used in hospitals for decades and just a catch-all term for any patient that the doctor doesn't want to deal with.
"There's a certain level of discrimination against the chronically ill, and that's where GOMER comes from," says Dr Muennig. This is also used to describe patients who are presumably just looking for pain medication.
Frequent fliers: Patients who keep coming back to the hospital for relevant or mostly irrelevant purposes fall under this category. "It's most often used to talk about people with severe diseases like diabetes, or renal failure and diabetes," says Dr Muennig.
This also includes patients with hypochondriac tendencies who are convinced they are gravely ill, and also the ones looking for drug fixes – in the hopes that one or the other doctor will be more lenient about prescribing them something.
FLK: This stands for 'funny looking kid' and the cruel acronym is used to describe "those babies who are 'syndromic' or [we can tell] something is wrong with them based on how they look," as a Chicago doctor spilt.
Especially referring to kids with Down syndrome, doctors also assign this term to babies who don't have a clear diagnosis, but whose 'abnormal' appearance suggests that there may be something wrong with them.
Total body Dolores: Translated directly from Latin, like most medical terms, "Dolores' translates to pain so this 'literally means total body pain," the doctor says. Doctors use it in their conversation, like "I have a total body Dolores in room 109."
This slang is also used "commonly with people of colour, people using drugs," he says. More common phrases like "'crack head' are commonly heard on the ward too."
Status dramaticus: A patient is reportedly in 'status dramaticus' when they are a "10/10 [for pain] always, although they look fine," the Chicago doctor says.
"This is someone that wails shrieks, howls so loudly you can hear them from the hallways. Everything hurts and they make sure you know about it," he says.
The problem with the doctor using this terms, according to Dr Alex Green is, "is that they're dealing with people who are sick, physically and sometimes mentally and these [dismissals] can be more directly harmful."
HHS and Aye-aye-it is: A crude discrimination against people of colour and the ones for whom English is a second language, leads to doctors labelling them with 'hysterical Hispanic syndrome' and aye-aye-itis.
"I hear 'aye-aye-it is' used for a Hispanic patient who has many somatic complaints, none of which are related to their surgery or main problem, usually accompanied by 'aye, aye,'" the Chicago doctor says.
"Language barriers are a big discriminatory factor," says Dr Green. "There's an attitude of "oh, another patient that doesn't speak English, why don't they learn, it makes our lives so difficult," says Dr Green.
Slugging: "A slug is someone who is reluctant to get up out of bed after surgery," says the Chicago doctor. "They tend to be slow, in pain, and want to stay 'one more day longer, please,'" he says.
Dr Green says that "a lot of it derives from [doctors'] systemic frustrations with the medical system back-firing back onto patients."
