FLK

Funny Looking Kid

AMFYOYO

Adios Mother Fucker You’re On Your Own

Jeff Newman – Medical Acronyms

During residence there are code words that residents and doctors use so the patient or their family doesn’t know what the doctors are talking about. Residence is the two years a doctor must spend working at a clinic or hospital before they can be considered full-fledged physicians. It is very common for doctors to use acronyms for the diagnosis of most diseases. Mostly because the actual name of the disease can sometimes be quite lengthy and will only scare the patient more. Because of this fact, it allows the doctors to make up their own acronyms so that they can communicate among themselves without alarming the patient of anything.

While most acronyms are directly related to medical terms, some are used for other specific situations. For example, one acronym commonly used by doctors is “FLK.”  This stands for “Funny looking kid.” When the doctors have a pediatric patient they use this acronym to describe that they don’t know exactly what is wrong with them but they suspect a genetic disease. This is easy way to let other doctors or nurses around discern what the situation is without frightening or upsetting the child. Another acronym commonly used is “AMFYOYO,” which stands for “Adios mother fucker you’re on your own.” This is only used when a doctor gets so fed up with a patient that they make them leave the floor they are on and pass him or her onto another doctor. It is very common for patients to be unreasonable and after a 36 hour shift; the doctor just does not have enough energy left in the tank to deal with their antics.

Different occupations have different lingo that they use. This lingo is normally created to either make a situation easier to deal with or to create occupational identity. It takes approximately 10 years for doctors to go through college, medical school, and then residency. After all that, one would think they deserve to have an elite status and be able to form their own methods and systems of doing their jobs. If this means to dampen reactions from nervous patients and make the doctors’ life easier, so be it. Other occupations do this as well. Police officers, fire fighters, and engineers just to name a few all have their own special languages that separate them from the rest of the population. I think after all the effort that all these people put into making an identity for themselves through their respective careers, they are worthy of having something they can call their own. Occupational language is one of those things.