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9 words and phrases only nurses understand
Frequent flyer
Rose Cottage or celestially discharged
The Rose Cottage sounds like a lovely place, but you might want to hold off before you book a two-night stay.
Marianne, a nurse with four years of experience, told Business Insider that in the UK, Rose Cottage is what nurses call the mortuary. And they often call the deceased a "Rosey."
When someone dies in the US they're said to have been celestially discharged, Redditor mikenesmith wrote in response to the thread "The secret slang of hospitals."
Tachy
This isn't a misspelling for "tacky." If you overhear a nurse say "tachy' they're not insulting a patient's dress sense. Marianne said it's short for tachycardia, which means a fast heart rate.
Code brown
You might be familiar with code blue — an emergency code for an immediate resuscitation that's often shouted on shows like Grey's Anatomy and ER. But have you ever heard of a code brown?
Nancy, a nurse with 45 years of experience, told Business Insider that it's used when there's a poop situation. Specifically, when a patient needs to be cleaned up from a bowel movement.
Chocolate hostage
This one's not quite as menacing as it sounds.
Amy, a nurse with six years of experience, told Business Insider that "chocolate hostage" is nurse-speak for a patient who's suffering from constipation.
NPS
Nurses can spot a patient suffering from NPS a mile off.
Classic symptoms include a clenched jaw, furrowed brow, and a baby wrapped in cotton wool, Glenys, a nurse with 22 years of experience, told Business Insider.
She said that patients diagnosed with NPS are showing signs of what nurses have dubbed "New Parent Syndrome" — overprotective parents who bring their newborns into hospital for displaying perfectly normal baby behavior.
Walkie-talkie
Gail, a nurse with 25 years of experience, told Business Insider that if a patient can walk, talk, and take care of themselves, then they're classed as a walkie-talkie.
PITA
The word pita might make you think of hummus, but if you hear it in a hospital, it means something totally different.
Liz, a nurse with two years of experience, told Business Insider that among nurses, a PITA is a patient or family member who is a pain in the a--.
Sundowning
As the sun sets on another day on the hospital ward, elderly patients can sometimes begin to display signs of delirium. They become confused, agitated, and act totally out of character as twilight approaches.
In the medical world, this behavior is known as "sundowning," Hannah, a physician's assistant with two years of experience, told Business Insider.
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