Sunday, July 23, 2023

The Secret Language of Doctors: Cracking the Code of Hospital Culture, Dr Brian Goldman, c. 2014. 610.14GOL.

The Secret Language of Doctors: Cracking the Code of Hospital Culture, Dr Brian Goldman, c. 2014. 610.14GOL.

A must read for prospective medical students before they to go medical school.

Brian Goldman:

  • ER physician: Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital
  • host of the CBC Radio's award-winning program, White Coat, Black Art
  • TEDx talk about medical errors
  • pediatric residency, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto

Brings back a lot of memories.

A most privileged profession.

The best part for me: jargon that was "new" to me. Example, regarding a morbidly obese patient:

  • beemer: BMI, morbidly obese
  • a clinic unit: 200 pounds; this particular patient, at 600 pounds, was three clinic units

Argot:

  • argot: "argo" -- a more or less secret vocabulary and idiom peculiar too a particular group
    • a French word
    • coined by Pierre Guiraud, 1628
  • le argotiers, a name given to a group of thieves; his 1862 novel, Les Misérables, used by Victor Hugo, described argo as "the language of misery"
  • argo: also referred to as a cant or cryptolect
    • vocabulary, its own grammar, syntax

Author says he learned about 20,000 technical terms that laypeople don't know -- during medical school

  • everything from aphasia to zygoma

Every page is a page turner!

Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NYC:

  • entrance on Fifth Avenue: for religious Jews
  • entrance on Madison Avenue: used by residents of East Harlem



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