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"6 Medical Abbreviations, Acronyms, Euphemisms, Jargon, and Slang (p. 103-104)

Medical scientific terms are the meat and potatoes of clinical discourse. Abbreviations, acronyms, euphemisms, jargon, and slang are the condiments. They add flavor to what might otherwise be multi-syllabic discussions. These sometimes arcane, occasionally insightful, communication tools allow us to convey information in a shorthand manner, often in ways unintelligible to the non-medical person, at least so we think.

Abbreviations

In medicalese, an ELF is not a strange little man in green tights; the term refers to elective low forceps or to endoscopic laser foraminotomy. PET is positive electron tomography, not a domesticated animal. SPA is not where one goes for a relaxing massage; it stands for serum prothrombin activity (or one of nine other possibilities). This chapter is not intended to be useful in a clinical sense. It is not the place to go when pondering the meaning of PNSP (penicillin-nonsusceptible Streptococcus pneumoniae) or BOD (burning on urination).

The clinically helpful book on abbreviations (ABRs) is Medical Abbreviations, by Neil M. Davis, currently in its 13th edition (1). Davis insightfully subtitles his book 28,000 Conveniences at the Expense of Communication and Safety. This section is for enrichment, to help us understand the context and scope of medical abbreviations. I begin with the method used by medical writers to create abbreviations. In the previous paragraph, I created an abbreviation for the word "abbreviation"- ABR. (This abbreviation is not in Dr. Davis latest book, but perhaps he will include it in the 14th edition.) Now, by custom, for the remainder of the chapter I can use either the full word "abbreviation" or the shorthand ABR that I have created.

This all works very well when a chapter or an article is short and when there are not too many ABRs. Reading becomes tiresome when the author uses many unfamiliar ABRs whose solitary explanations are scattered throughout pages of text. Consider the following sentence from a published chapter on obstetric complications: "DCs in the presence of a positive FFN triples the risk of PTB." This sent me scrambling to confirm that DCs meant uterine contractions, FFN is fetal fibronectin, and PTB stands for pre-term birth."