Is your UBI really a PGT?

Posted on September 24, 2008 by Cath@VWXYNot?

The BBC website has a great article today about the dying art of medical slang.
Apparently, increasing rates of litigation are inhibiting doctors from scribbling such gems in their patient notes as TEETH (Tried Everything Else, Try Homeopathy) and TTFO (Told To, erm, go away, but passed off by one quick-thinking doctor as To Take Fluids Orally at a recent trial).
Incidentally, I thought my Essex-born, Norwich-bred friend was having me on when she told me about local doctors writing NFN (Normal For Norfolk) in their notes, but apparently not. Perhaps Dr Gee can advise?

About Cath@VWXYNot?

"one of the sillier science bloggers [...] I thought I should give a warning to the more staid members of the community." - Bob O'Hara, December 2010
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25 Responses to Is your UBI really a PGT?

  1. Åsa Karlström says:
    September 24, 2008 at 10:19 pm

    haha 🙂 really, I think this might be a dying breed. All electronics and liability and all, but at least it is fun to read aobut now. Fluids Orally… sure 😉

  2. Richard P. Grant says:
    September 24, 2008 at 11:18 pm

    I’ve heard ‘NFN’ from multiple (medical) sources.
    But they’re medics. They’re wrong most of the time.

  3. Cath Ennis says:
    September 24, 2008 at 11:52 pm

    Yes, lots of fun!
    I once went to a club in Norwich where I was taller than all the men (I am 5 foot 7) – with the exception of one, whose ethnicity precluded any long-standing Norfolk ancestry.

  4. Richard P. Grant says:
    September 24, 2008 at 11:53 pm

    And did, um, other parts match up?

  5. Cath Ennis says:
    September 25, 2008 at 12:02 am

    What kind of girl do you think I am??!! I do NOT go around picking up men (of any description) in nightclubs.
    Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

  6. Richard P. Grant says:
    September 25, 2008 at 12:09 am

    bq. What kind of girl do you think I am??!!
    One who’s good for a laugh…

  7. Cath Ennis says:
    September 25, 2008 at 12:14 am

    That is
    a) true, and
    b) not an implication of any kind of behaviour that is inappropriate for a person of my considerable reputation and stature

  8. Richard P. Grant says:
    September 25, 2008 at 12:28 am

    ‘considerable [] stature’?

  9. Cath Ennis says:
    September 25, 2008 at 12:41 am

    in the sense of status

  10. Richard P. Grant says:
    September 25, 2008 at 1:06 am

    Careful Cath. We might be told to ‘get a room’.

  11. Cath Ennis says:
    September 25, 2008 at 1:13 am

    There’s more chance that you might be told to ‘move along now please, sir’.

  12. Richard P. Grant says:
    September 25, 2008 at 1:28 am

    cough.
    OK, you win. Newcastle is obviously dodgier than Cambridge.

  13. Bob O'Hara says:
    September 25, 2008 at 5:13 am

    I was taught NFN shortly after I moved to Norwich. It was done by way of warning. A warning for which I am grateful.

    Newcastle is obviously dodgier than Cambridge

    Are we talking football here?
    runs and hides down a dark tunnel

  14. Maxine Clarke says:
    September 25, 2008 at 11:30 am

    I am often referred to as a “charming lady” when doctors write letters to each other each time I see a new one. At first I was rather, er, “charmed” by this, until I eventually twigged that it is code for “normal” (ie not batty, deranged, abusive, addicted or otherwise “difficult”).

  15. Åsa Karlström says:
    September 25, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    Maxine> well, at least they say something positive indstead of just omitting the negative… and maybe they think you are charming and normal?!
    it reminds me of the “normal” greeting “hello luv” or as they do here in Memphis “what can I do for you honey/sweetie” and then you realise that this is generic just because you’re a women.

  16. Cath Ennis says:
    September 25, 2008 at 4:51 pm

    Bob, you’d better stay in that dark tunnel for a while, mate. You too, Grant.
    Maxine, I like that piece of code, it is better than seeing “Maxine is normal” in an introductory letter! I am usually referred to as “curious and engaged”, which I think means “annoying scientist who asks way too many questions”.
    Asa, I miss that! In the UK I was always called Love (Yorkshire), Pet (Northumberland) or Hen (Glasgow). Canadians don’t seem to have an equivalent.

  17. Anna Kushnir says:
    September 25, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    Anything beats Ma’am. Anything.

  18. Cath Ennis says:
    September 25, 2008 at 5:06 pm

    True! I worked in a cinema in Columbus, Ohio one summer and repeatedly got in trouble for not saying Ma’am to female customers. The trouble is, in an English accent it either comes out as Mam (Northern English version of Mum/Mom) or Maarrrm (reserved for the Queen).

  19. Maxine Clarke says:
    September 25, 2008 at 6:52 pm

    They find out I am annoying and ask too many questions when they get to see me as a result of the referral letter, but they are always very kind about not putting alarming words into their actual printed editions 😉

  20. Åsa Karlström says:
    September 25, 2008 at 8:03 pm

    @Anna/Cath
    oh the Ma’am. I get that too, ususally from sales people or bank people and sometimes other women and waitresses. Very stressing since I alway start to turn and wonder who they talk to “since I don’t look that old do I”?! 😉
    Although I have to admit that I have picked it up when talking to women who are older than I am…. shudders and realises how many strange things I have picked up

  21. Cath Ennis says:
    September 26, 2008 at 7:43 pm

    I’ve never lived anywhere for long enough to pick that kind of thing up. Well except York, but I was only 18 when I left and you don’t get many 18 year olds going around calling people “luv”.

  22. Åsa Karlström says:
    September 26, 2008 at 8:06 pm

    haha, I probably shouldn’t have picked it up since I’ve only lived here for a bit over two years but since everyone seems to say it, it’s hard not to?! Maybe especially since I’m not native English so adaptation is easier? I’m not really changing my orginial speech, but just tweaking and adapting my second language.
    My nice British English accent [that was horrendously mocked and tweaked in Vancouver] is loosing the battle against the more, ehhhh, American accent with broader sounds 😉 I did however, quickly revert back when I visited UK this summer though. Always something 🙂 but back home i doubt that I would loose my old way of talking, even if moving to another part of Sweden with different accents. Maybe a bit but nothing major.

  23. Brian Derby says:
    September 26, 2008 at 8:51 pm

    I worked on summer as a student in Nashville and I remember how courteous people were in speech but not necessarily in thought.
    Luv is great in Lancs/Yorks but stranger still is being called a duck; this seems to be a Midlands thing in the UK.

  24. Cath Ennis says:
    September 29, 2008 at 4:45 pm

    I’ve been called Duck by people from Manchester, Bolton and other parts of the Northwest too.

  25. steffi suhr says:
    September 29, 2008 at 5:33 pm

    Åsa – maybe this goes for you too, but after over 5 years in the UK, and then another 6 in the US, I’ve pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I just sound ODD. Maybe euro-trashy?
    Anyway, why are so many of you familiar with your medical records.. am I missing out on something? It is interesting though going to different types of doctors in different countries – ohmygoodness, the difference in how to treat things is huge: fast prescription of heavy-duty drugs in the US vs. ‘let’s see how it develops’ in the UK, vs. – my most recent, first experience back here in Germany – going for a very bad, incessant cough, and getting the double-whammy of homeopathy and, ‘if that doesn’t help, we can try codein’…???
    Definitely puts the whole medical thing in perspective!

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