So, it feels a bit strange to start with a post not directly related to ‘close friend’ quotes, but this was too good an opportunity to miss.
On Wednesday evening, this article appeared on the Mail’s website, which ‘revealed’ the slang terms used by doctors to describe their patients.
Without even clicking the headline, I knew almost exactly what the article would say.
Why? Because only the day before, I had read this old BBC story from 2003, which reappeared briefly in the ‘most popular: shared’ box on the front page of the BBC News website. It described a paper by a Dr Fox (sadly not the DJ or politician) – published in a medical journal – which recorded the various acronyms used by doctors to covertly describe their patient.
As expected, the Mail’s story looked very much like the older BBC article, barring some new acronyms which had been added. Have a read through and compare the articles, but here’s some of the best bits:
From the BBC:
Thus rheumatology, considered by hard-pressed juniors one of the less busy specialties, becomes “rheumaholiday”, the “Freud Squad” are psychiatrists, and “Gassers” and “Slashers” are anaesthetists and general surgeons respectively.
And from the Mail:
For example rheumatology, considered to be one of the less busy specialties, is ‘rheumaholiday’, the ‘Freud Squad’ are psychiatrists, ‘Gassers’ are anaesthetists and ‘slashers’ general surgeons.
To be fair to the Mail (what?), they might just have stumbled across the same journal the original BBC article came from, albeit 8 years later. However, the big problem with that theory is this not-in-any-way-lifted quote about the acronym TTFO (Told to f*** off);
From the BBC:
He told BBC News Online: ‘This guy was asked by the judge what the acronym meant, and luckily for him he had the presence of mind to say: ‘To take fluids orally’.”
And the Mail:
He said: ‘This guy was asked by the judge what the acronym meant, and luckily for him he had the presence of mind to say: ‘To take fluids orally’.’
So, perhaps the Mail came up with this story on their own, and phoned up Dr Fox, who gave word-for-word the same quote as eight years ago. Or, perhaps they’ve seen an eight-year-old story on the BBC website, rearranged some of the paragraphs, changed some of the words, and added a few extra examples. Answers on a postcard.
