Talk:Medical slang

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Contents

[edit] Wikipedia is not a dictionary

This page is mainly a list of terms that are already in the references. It does add much on the rationale or history of the slang. Why duplicate them on Wikipedia? The article on Cockney Rhyming Slang is an example of how a slang article should be done - just a few examples, rather than the whole dictionary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.133.0.8 (talk • contribs) 2006-08-24 07:02:54

This page seems to have reverted to being a dictionary rather than containing links to existing online glossaries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.133.0.8 (talk) 14:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Many of the terms in the list are not slang at all, they are the standard medical acronyms. If a list is being kept, recommend the non-slang acronyms and terms are removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.34.42.175 (talk) 09:27, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I agree with this thread here. As an encyclopaedia, wikipaedia should not be aiming to provide lists of phrases or vocabulary. Other pages about languages, slang or otherwise, 'describe' and give an encyclopaedia account of the language or language subculture. Some of the language pages give "samples" but none seek to provide a comprehensive dictionary or thesaurus list. Perhaps we should restrict our list and provide but a few samples so the general population can get a feel for it, rather than have a translation guide? Orinoco-w (talk) 04:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
A much debated issue. See Portal:Contents/List of glossaries and its talkpage. Glossary of graph theory has been suggested as a good example. -- Quiddity (talk) 08:48, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
So I see! Oh - and thanks for fixing up the multiple <ref>s for me. I didn't know you could do that. Orinoco-w (talk) 12:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Copyvio revert

I've reverted this page to eliminate the copyvio section on "codes" added by anonymous user User:168.28.200.6. It was a copy-paste of an article on MedicineNet, whose content license would not permit that use and subsequent relicensing under GFDL. --FreelanceWizard 21:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

This article has sources listed at the end but needs inline citations or people will come along and add new examples without sources, and the reader won't be able to tell which are real and which aren't. On another matter it has to be said that this is pushing the definition of an encyclopedia article to breaking point. It's a list and belongs in Wiktionary or somewhere. What would be an article is a discussion of the phenomenon of medical slang, but this isn't it. 81.158.215.229 18:07, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Because the slang isn't permissible in formal notes it is passed orally or in emails. That means most of it won't have verifiable sources. It gets collected in online dictionaries compiled by enthusiasts, some of whom have worked in healthcare. Trying to trace back to verifiable sources is therefore a pointless and impossible task. What is needed is a disclaimer to this effect, not an impossible request for source citation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.133.0.8 (talk • contribs) 2006-12-13 07:58:38

[edit] Attention: Slang Glossary policy discussion underway

Slang glossaries violate the following policy:

Wikipedia is not a dictionary

Wikipedia is not a dictionary or a usage or jargon guide. Wikipedia articles are not:

  1. Dictionary definitions. Because Wikipedia is not a dictionary, please do not create an entry merely to define a term. An article should usually begin with a good definition; if you come across an article that is nothing more than a definition, see if there is information you can add that would be appropriate for an encyclopedia. An exception to this rule is for articles about the cultural meanings of individual numbers.
  2. Lists of such definitions. There are, however, disambiguation pages consisting of pointers to other pages; these are used to clarify differing meanings of a word. Wikipedia also includes glossary pages for various specialized fields.
  3. A usage guide or slang and idiom guide. Wikipedia is not in the business of saying how words, idioms, etc. should be used. We aren't teaching people how to talk like a Cockney chimney-sweep. However, it may be important in the context of an encyclopedia article to describe just how a word is used to distinguish among similar, easily confused ideas, as in nation or freedom. In some special cases an article about an essential piece of slang may be appropriate.

Due to the many AfDs which are initiated to enforce this policy and due to the resistance to such deletion by defenders of the glossaries, I have started a discussion at Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Slang glossaries to rewrite the policy in order to solve this problem and to readdress this question: should slang glossaries by allowed on Wikipedia? --List Expert 23:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This Page is a Disgrace

It's not hard to figure out what kind of people are getting their kicks out of this article and the links. This article is unworthy of Wikipedia and should be deleted.

Actually, there's no way to know who reads the page or why. A recent discussion concluded that the page was worthy of inclusion. Feel free to (re)start the WP:AfD process if you feel otherwise. DMacks 03:35, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I'm reading it! I need it for a blog for my class, you can kill it later. ☻I am only here because the Vulcans want to know when they should come☻ (talk) 20:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] April edits by 204.52.215.77

It seems that right after this article passed AfD due to Uncle Ed's edits, an IP reverted those edits. If someone would help redoing this massive deletion, it'd greatly improve this article. johnpseudo 21:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

  • It depends on your definition of "improve." IMAO, it'd make the article pretty, inoffensive and utterly useless for learning what the slang is like and the subject is about. I'm not a big fan of purges in general, and especially not indiscriminate ones when sources for many can be found - and for a great many more if we can bug someone with appropriate database/journal access.
    Feel free to dispute this. --Kizor 21:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
    • The way I see it, there is absolutely nothing stopping people from making stuff up and putting it in here. It seems to me that a lot of that has happened already. Bizarre, obscure acronyms like this are quite rarely useful unless they are heavily used. And heavily-used acronyms should have no problem finding at least one source. I think that each and every acronym should have at least one source. But instead of beginning the implementation of such a standard with a purge of virtually all the content of this page, it would be quite useful if someone could find a relatively-comprehensive source for this to mark all the legitimate slang terms first, before deleting the terms with no source. Also, I think this article would be a lot more useful if the slang were split into region-specific sections. johnpseudo 17:16, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
    • My definition of "improve" is remove unverifiable content that is acknowledged to be unverifiable, per policy, and stop this article becoming a folk dictionary, again per policy. And my definition of "what the subject is about" is an explanation of medical slang, that one would expect an encyclopaedia to have, not a folk dictionary of it. There's plenty of source material that can be used to write about the subject in the further reading section of the article. All that is required is a will on the parts of editors to stop writing a folk dictionary and start writing an encyclopaedia article. Uncle G (talk) 16:14, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Alright already. I'll go find sources!Orinoco-w (talk) 07:34, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What constitutes good sources?

I note johnpseudo's removal of a number of unsourced links, but also the removal of several links that have their sources cited. Granted, the sources were various doctors blogs on the internet and not from a peer reviewed journal, but we are highly unlikely to obtain citations from NEJM. The closest we have managed has been the student BMJ and some news services. What sort of level of citation reference material are we requiring here? Orinoco-w (talk) 08:37, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Self-published sources are unreliable. So no forum posts or blog posts, and student newspaper editorials are pushing it. johnpseudo 05:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Then why is http://www.medicalspamd.com/the-blog/2007/5/19/medical-slang-how-doctors-insult-their-patients-and-each-other.html okay? Orinoco-w (talk) 12:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
It isn't. delete it. johnpseudo 14:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Real usage or journalistic invention?

I have often wondered, on reading the articles on medical slang - mainly unkind or derogatory references to the sick or to colleagues - how much of this is ever used by anyone. In over thirty years in medicine I have never come across most of these terms outside the media. The same stuff seems to be recycled, year after year, mainly in the kind of periodical that comes free to those in the medical professions. Funding for these tends to come from drug companies. They may also provide filler to leaven the serious content of regular journals. The articles tend to be written by humorous medical writers or, occasionally, stand up comedians. There is a sub-genre, aimed at the general public, which affects indignation at the contempt or callous disregard displayed to us, the patients.

Occasionally the same writer manages to target both audiences. An example of this is the British general practitioner, writer and comedian Dr Phil Hammond. A few years ago he printed a list of offensive abbreviations and epithets in a journal aimed at medics. A year later he wrote an indignant newspaper article after finding one of these (I think of the "not dead yet" variety) in a hospital discharge summary he had received in his professional capacity: presumably from a junior doctor who knew quite well who he was.

My suspicion, then, is that most of this stuff is not passed on by word of mouth between medical professionals at all, but exists in a parallel journalistic universe which, if it does not create them, keeps the terms circulating from one article to the next. That does not mean that no one ever uses these expressions: life, after all, often does imitate art. NRPanikker (talk) 09:56, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I am a legally qualified medical practitioner and have interacted with prehospital staff (ambulance crew from intern to ICU paramedic), Emergency Department staff and inpatient teams. I have heard a small proportion of these terms in common usage, generally when the patient in question is an exceptionally unpleasant specimen of humankind. I presume the subsection of terms to which I have been exposed is peculiar to Australia and the group of terms which seems to cross all the borders of the English speaking medical world. I'm sure the medical students have been exposed to a larger serve of these terms. It is rare that they are documented and in most cases they are handed over from carer to carer with the patient. They serve to encapsulate an aspect of the patient in a jargonized form, and yes - they range from unkind to appalling.
Orinoco-w (talk) 07:25, 14 April 2008 (UTC)