Tooth-to-Tattoo Ratio

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  I was talking to a surgeon with whom I work closely, and he suggested that the reason I survived and healed so quickly from my accident might have something to do with a phenomenon called TTR.  TTR stands for "Tooth to Tattoo Ratio".  It serves as a general measure of invincibility.  In short, the ideal TTR is 1:1.  Decreasing the number of teeth in an individuals head, or increasing the number of tattoos on a persons body, incrementally improves the individuals ability to survive a horrific accident.  This term should not be confused with the DBI, or "Dirt Bag Index", in which the number of tattoos is multiplied by the number of missing teeth.  The resulting integer is said to represent the number of days that have passed since the patient last bathed.

  
  

  TTR is just one example of medical slang- those unorthodox descriptors of unproven, but widely accepted medical phenomena.  Below are a list of other MedSlang terms.  

  
  

  
  

• 404 moment - The point in a doctor's ward round when medical records cannot be located. Comes from HTTP 404 error "Not Found". 
• AGMI - Ain't Gonna Make It
• Agnostication - A substitute for prognostication. Term used to describe the usually vain attempt to answer the question: "How long have I got, doc?" 
• ART - Assuming Room Temperature (dying).
• ATS - Acute Thespian Syndrome (the patient is faking illness)
• Baby Catcher - an obstetrician 
• Blamestorming - Apportionment of blame after the wrong leg or kidney is removed or some other particularly egregious foul-up. 
• Blood Suckers/Leeches/Vampires - those who take blood samples, such as laboratory technicians and Phlebotomists 
• Bounceback - a patient who returns to the emergency department with the same complaints shortly after being released 
• Bury the Hatchet - accidentally leaving a surgical instrument inside a patient 
• Cheech - ordering every test available in a feeble attempt at nailing a zebra
• CNS-QNS - Central Nervous System - Quantity Not Sufficient. (Brainless, Spineless)
• Code Brown - a faecal incontinence emergency. Often used by nurses and medical technicians requesting help cleaning up an unexpected bowel movement. 
• Code Yellow - a patient who has lost control of his or her bladder
• CTD - "Circling The Drain"  May also mean "Certain To Die"
• DBI - Dirt Bag Index - multiply the number of tattoos by the number of missing teeth to give an estimate of the number of days since the patient last bathed. 
• Departure lounge - geriatric ward 
• Dermaholiday - dermatology, considered to be a less-busy department. See rheumaholiday
• DFKDFC - Don't fu**ing know, don't fu**ing care - a diagnosis often applied to a surgery's most regular visitors. Most often treated with a low-dosage course of Amoxicillin.
• Digging for Worms - varicose vein surgery 
• Disco biscuits - refers to the nightclub drug ecstasy. Usage: "The man in cubicle three looks like he's taken one too many disco biscuit".
• Donorcycle - nursing slang for a motorcycle, so named due to the amount of head trauma associated with motorcycle accidents, but less so with the body, making the perfect candidate for organ donation
• DRT - Dead Right There
• EFT - Eleventh Floor Transfer (in a 10 floor hospital; refers to patient who is very close to death)
• FUBAR - Fu**ed Up Beyond All Recognition
• FBUNDY - Fu**ed, But Unfortunately Not Dead Yet. Also TFBNDY: Totally fu**ed but not dead yet.
• FLK - Funny Looking Kid - used to indicate a child (usually a newborn) whose habitus or overall appearance, while normal in gross anatomy, suggests a need further medical investigation for congenital and genetic anomalies. "Funny", in this sense, means strange or unusual, not laughable.
• FOS - diagnosis given to patients that are likely not telling the truth (full of shit), alternatively a patient with a bowel obstruction.
• FTD - Fixin' to Die 
• Gas Passer - an anesthesiologist (also Gasser, Gas Man or Gaswallah).
• GI Rounds - medical staff taking a break to eat lunch/dinner
• GOMER - "get out of my emergency room" - a patient, usually poor or elderly, in the emergency room with a chronic, non-emergency condition. 
• GLM - good looking mum (MILF in the US) 
• GPO - "Good for Parts Only"
• Handbag positive - confused patient (usually elderly lady) lying on hospital bed clutching handbag 
• Hasselhoff - a term for any patient who shows up in the emergency room with an injury for which there is a bizarre explanation. Original Source: Baywatch actor David Hasselhoff, who hit his head on a chandelier while shaving. The broken glass severed four tendons and an artery in his right arm. 
• LOBNH - Lights On But Nobody Home.
• M & Ms - mortality and morbidity conferences where doctors and other health-care professionals discuss mistakes and patient deaths.
• NAD - Not Actually Done
• NFN - Normal For Norfolk, (a rural English county stereotypically associated with inbreeding.) NAA (Arkansas) in the US.
• O-sign - A patient is "giving the O-sign" when very sick and lying with mouth open. This is followed by the Q-sign - when the tongue hangs out of the mouth - when the patient becomes terminal. 
• Oligoneuronal meaning someone who is thick (not smart).
• PAFO or PFO - Pissed And Fell Over. Too drunk to be ambulatory.
• Polybabydadic - The state of having illegitimate children by several fathers, known or unknown.
• Pumpkin positive refers to the idea that a person's brain is so tiny that a penlight shone into their mouth will make their empty head gleam like a Halloween pumpkin. 
• Rear Admiral - a proctologist 
• Rule of Five - means that if more than five of the patient's orifices are obscured by tubing, he has no chance of survival. 
• Slasher - surgeon 
• Shotgunning - ordering a wide variety of tests in the hope that one will show what's wrong with a patient 
• Status Hispanicus - An overly agitated Hispanic patient (often Caribbean, seldom Mexican) who cannot stop screaming about their condition without providing useful information. 
• Testiculation - Description of a gesture typically used by hospital consultant "when holding forth on subject on which he or she has little knowledge". Gesture is of an upturned hand with outstretched fingers pointed upwards, clutching an invisible pair of testicles.
• TEETH - tried everything else, try homeopathy.
• TTFO - Told To Fu** Off. 
• TUBE - Totally Unnecessary Breast Examination
  
• UBI - "Unexplained Beer Injury"
• Vitamin H - A Haldol injection, used in the ER setting to rapidly sedate patients (often already drunk or high) who display dangerous or destructive behavior that threatens the safety of hospital staff and other patients.
• AMF-YOYO* - "adios motherfu**er, you're on your own"
• LGFD - "looks good from door"; used to describe a difficult patient that you do not want to enter the room and interact with.
• LOL - "little old lady"
• LOL FDGB - "little old lady fall down go boom"
• SPAK - "status post ass-kicking"
• WNL - we never looked (alternatively within normal limits)
• C/C- "Cancel Christmas" (dead)
• JIC - "Jesus is calling"
• MFB - Measure for box
• PBOO - "pine box on order"; see below
• Pecker checker / Cock Doc- urologist
• Unclear medicine - nuclear medicine, performed with nuclear I-suppose-atopes
• Q-sign - similar to an O-sign but with the patient's tongue protruding.
• Q-dot sign - n. similar to a Q-sign, but with a fly on the tongue. A poor prognostic sign.
• Fascinoma - any interesting or amusing tumor or malignancy
• “I fell on it” - invariably, the explanation given when a patient with a foreign object in his or her rectum is asked how it got there.
• Peek and shriek - to open a patient surgically, discover an incurable condition, and close the incision immediately
• Tough stick - n. a patient that it is difficult to draw blood from.
• Trauma handshake - n. a digital rectal exam. Every major trauma patient gets one.
• Two beers - the number of beers every patient involved in an alcohol-related automobile accident claims to have drunk before the accident
• Two dudes - The usual answer when doctors ask a patient who beat them up, as in "I was walking down the street minding my own business when these two dudes jumped me for no reason." The implication is that if it were only one dude the patient would have won the fight.