by Nick Edwards
GMC–General Medical Council. They make sure that doctors are being good boys and girls and investigate when the public/colleagues complain. There is no truth whatsoever to the rumours that they have trained CIA agents working for them as undercover investigators.
GP (general practitioner)–your family doctor. They tend to come in two types: partners (good businessmen, who happen to be doctors) and salaried GPs who work for the former but don’t have a financial interest in the practice (they don’t own as expensive a car or do as much paper work).
GTN–a drug to help with angina.
Haemoglobin–the oxygen-carrying part of your red blood cells/blood. Not enough and you become anaemic.
Hewitt, Patricia (Secretary of State for Health)–the doctor’s and nurse’s best friend. Bastion of keeping the NHS public. A great moral thinker of our time. Highly respected among all that work in the NHS. I would personally walk for miles barefoot over broken glass, just to hear her wise words…
Hoodie–a naughty boy or girl who is worried about the rain damaging their new hair-do.
ICU–intensive care unit. Also known as ITU–intensive treatment unit. The area of the hospital where the sickest patients receive specialised and life saving treatment. Nicknamed ‘expensive scare unit’.
Lancet–another medical journal that gets itself into hot water a bit. Fewer pictures than the BMJ and longer words. Hence, has a slightly higher brow readership (P. S The MMR jab is a good thing).
MAU–medical admissions unit.
NHS–National Health Service. The greatest achievement of a socialist Labour government. Set up in the late 1940s to provide free care to all who need it from the cradle to the grave. Was once the envy of the world.
Naloxone–drug that reverses the effects of heroin. Helps drug users to breathe; also gets them off their high rather abruptly.
PCT–primary care trust. Holds the purse strings and power in the NHS.
PFI–private finance initiative. Another name for a very, very expensive loan that doesn’t appear on the Chancellor’s ledger.
Reconfiguration–New Labour speak for closing departments, wards and hospitals.
Red phone–the ambulance service use it to tell us about emergencies. Called the red phone no matter what colour it actually is.
Resus–resuscitation department. Where we take the sickest patients and where we don’t get bothered about 4-hour rules (usually).
Revalidation–the GMC word for the idea to retest doctors’ skills and knowledge every so often to make sure we are not like Harold Shipman.
Socialist principles–something that New Labour has very little experience of. As opposed to PFI and for-profit independent treatment centres, which it knows all about.
SHO–Senior House Officer, old term for a junior doctor in training. Now replaced by foundation doctors, specialty training doctors or unemployment.
SMINT–senior minor injury nurse triage.
Staph./Staph. aureus–a bacterium of some strength and power. Known for MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and the new deadly killer MSSA (methicillin sensitive Staph. aureus)–otherwise known as bog standard Staph. aureus.
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Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Friday Books
An imprint of The Friday Project Limited
83 Victoria Street, London SW1H0HW
www.thefridayproject.co.uk
www.fridaybooks.co.uk
Text © Dr Nick Edwards
In Stitches is not authorised or endorsed by the NHS and opinions expressed within this book do not reflect those of the NHS. All situations and characters contained within the book are amalgamations of different scenarios at different hospitals and names and timings have been changed to protect anonymity. The author would like it to be known that he is writing under a pseudonym.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © MARCH 2009 ISBN: 978-0-007-33270-0
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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