Is it true that medical professionals sometimes refer to patients who go blue in the face from severe breathing difficulties as “smurfs”?
Call me overly sensitive but this does worry me.
I used to suffer from severe allergy-related asthma.
The thought of nurses, doctors or paramedics chilling out over beers and exchanging “funny” smurf stories disgusts me.
removed because, not a factual response.
I can’t speak to whether it’s true or not, but so what if it is? Doctors, nurses, EMTs and other medical professionals see horrible things almost daily; dark humor is one way people deal with things like that. Now, I’ll agree that joking like that in front of patients is the height of unprofessionalism, but on their own time? Meh.
And I’ll add, factually, that medical black humor often does involve FAR worse things than referring to cyanotic patients as “Smurfs.” I’ll spare your delicate sensibilities.
Q.E.D.: “quarterpounder with cheese” =thin/small woman with yeast infection? “oyster” =big nasty piece of coughed-up mucus? AND WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE CALL WEEPING ECZEMA?
Yes, I temporarily forgot that the world is ROUGH -and I promptly overreacted. My bad. (It’s late here, and I’m tired and I HAVE had a few drinks.)
So anyway, have any of you ever called and/or witnessed someone calling a person with cyanosis a “smurf”?
I worked as a secretary/scheduler in a pediatric cardiology office for 6 years and never heard the term. Cyanotic patients were very common.
In fact this is the first time I’ve heard that term mentioned and I’ve heard a lot of medical slang, humorous and otherwise.
Here’s a collection of medical slang, including “smurfing.”
Speaking of black humor involving our little blue friends, during the Noriega dictatorship, the crowd-control water cannon trucks shot water containing an irritant that left the people who were sprayed blue. The trucks were nicknamed “pitufos” (“smurfs”); they were painted blue and had smurf insignia on their sides. Highly comical.
Yes, I’ve heard the term used, as in, “He’s smurfing.”
But NEVER, NEVER in front of the patients.
Other terms I’ve used or heard?
PITA = Pain in the Ass (obvious)
DFO - Done Fell Out (Fainting, passing out)
ART - Assuming Room Temperature (patient is already dead)
FDGB - Fall Down, Go Boom (fall patients)
CATS - Cut All To Shit
Frequent Flier - an regular patient, usually a whiner.
On preview, I see these terms are already covered by Colibri’s link. But, yes, we use these terms, but never, never, ever in front of a patient or their family. We can be a sick bunch, but we do have some decorum.
well, sometimes…
BiblioCat, EMT
I have not heard ‘smurf’, but “blue bloater” has been used to differentiate the right-sided heart failure/chronic bronchitis end of the COPD axis from the “pink puffer” emphysematous end of the spectrum.
I can add to that with GPO (Good for Parts Only).
we say ‘‘positive smurf sign’’ hereabouts, or ‘‘positive blueberry sign’’, same diff.
GOMER, get out of my er
APS, annoying personality syndrome
LOL/M/P, little old lady/man/person
assuming room temperature, circling the drain, a personal favorite is ‘‘I see dead people’’ meaning we’re full now, but will have empty beds soon.
Hey, I’ll deal with your explosive body fluids, you deal with my MASH syndrome humor
For Og’s sake, if you ever treat me for cyanosis (not that I’m likely to be inflicted with it any time soon, give the smokes a couple more years) call me a Smurf to my face! The last thing I want when I’m freaked out because my body’s decided to kill me is to be bombared with a bunch of technobabble. If I hear “The poor bastard’s a Smurf” I’ll at least know I’m dealing with a human and not an EMHP (or whatever Robert Piccaro’s character on Voyager was referred to).
Status Dramaticus: pt acting out in order to gain attention
Celestial Transfer: pt about to expire (please note: this is NEVER said in front of patients or families! Usually used between staff when you don’t want to blurt out “The patient in bed five is about to die” )
squirrel: any patient who is acting like an idiot
And yeah, these are just medical staff’s way of lightening their own load a little. Dark humor is SO prevalent in health care; it’s how we cope with seeing people sick and dying all day long. But we do try to keep it to ourselves; anybody caught making inappropriate comments where they might be overheard by patients or families is quickly jerked up short by their coworkers.