A selection of terms including some but not all from this week’s guest publication: Hospital Doctor 10 October 2002 www.hospital-doctor.net,. Originally compiled by Dr Adam Fox but edited in the sake of taste & decency.

Dr Fox is an SpR in paediatrics at St Mary's Hospital, London. He is keen to hear of any omissions. E-mail him at: adam.fox2@virgin.net

Adminisphere: Where the hospital managers work

Assmosis: Promotion by kissing ass

AFU & BR: All mucked up & beyond repair

ATFO: Asked to leave (precedes TTFO)

Blamestorming: Apportioning of blame for mistakes, usually to any locum in sight

Bounce: What a patient will do when you attempt a turf without enough buff

Brown trout: A stool that doesn't float, as opposed to an air biscuit, which does

Buff: Applying spin to a patient's history to facilitate a turf

Cephosplat: Antibiotic Domestos

Code brown: Incontinence-related emergency

Cold tea sign: When positive, refers to the several cups of cold tea on the bedside cabinet beside a dead geriatric

Departure lounge: Geriatric ward

Dermaholiday: One of the less intensive specialties, but busier than rheumaholiday

DBI: Dirtbag index, which is calculated by the number of tattoos on the body multiplied by number of recent missing teeth, to estimate days without a bath

ERCP: Emergency retrograde clerking of patient, an emergency procedure before the consultant rounds

Eternal care: Intensive care

Expensive care: Intensive care, again

FTF: Failure to fly, for attempted suicide victims

FLK: Funny-looking kid. May be JLD or NFN

Freud squad: Psychiatrists

GOK: God only knows

Gomer: 'Get out of my emergency room' heartsink

GROLIES: Guardian reader of limited intelligence in ethnic skirt

HAIRY PSALMS: Haven't any idea regarding your patient. Send a lot more serum

JLD: Just like Dad. In FLKs it is commonly the aetiology

Journal Of Anecdotal Medicine: The source to quote for less than evidence-based medical facts

J.P. Frog: Just plain f…ing ran out of gas

LOBNH: Lights on but nobody home. Also referred to as asynapsing neuritis

MFI: A very large myocardial infarction

Metabolic clinic: The tea room

MICO: Masterly inactivity and cat-like observation

MICOS: Masterly inactivity, cat-like observation and steroids

N=1 trial: Polite term for experimenting on a patient

NFN: Normal for Norfolk. Another possible aetiology of an FLK

Oligoneuronal: When thick doesn't sound medical

O-sign: Found on the very sick patient who lies with mouth open. Precedes Q-sign

Pan investigram: shorthand for a raft of investigations

Pathology outpatients: Follow-up for dead people

PFO: Fell over when tired and emotional. A common A&E diagnosis

PID shuffle: Spot diagnosis in A&E. Others include the kidney stone squirm

PPP: Rather poor protoplasm

Plumbus Oscillans: Latin for swinging the lead

Policeman lesion: A lesion on an X-ray so obvious that a policeman would spot it

Psychoceramics: Psychogeriatrics, Pumpkin positive: When you shine a penlight into the patient's mouth and his brain is so small his whole head lights up

Q-sign: Following the O-sign, it's when the terminal patient's tongue hangs out of their open mouth

Rule of five: If more than five orifices are obscured by plastic tubing then the patient's condition is critical

Scepticaemia: What doctors develop with experience

SIG: Stroppy, ignorant git

Amyoyo syndrome: Alright mother......, you're on your own (seen in head injury patients in ICU)

TEETH: Tried everything else, try homeopathy

TFBUNDY: Totally unwell but unfortunately not dead yet. Best avoided in the medical notes

THC: Three hots and a cot, sought in A&E by the local homeless

TLA: Three-letter acronym. Used repeatedly by acronymophiliacs

Treat 'n' street: A&E philosophy of quick patient turnaround

Trick cyclists: Psychiatrists, also referred to as pest control

TTFO: Told to leave

UBI: Unexplained beer injury, for all those hungover people on Sunday mornings with black eyes orswollen knees and no idea how they'd got them

Unclear medicine: Nuclear medicine

Vitamin H: Haloperidol

Woolworth's test: Used by anaesthetists. If you can imagine the patient shopping in Woolworth's, they are fit enough for an anaesthetic