"sign cope?", Magnum sounded out. We were at a coffee shop when he got a text from his step mother. His dad was at the hospital getting checked out after an episode of syncope.
I asked him what had happened, and that's when he phoneticized "sign cope?"
"Ah", I recalled ,"he fainted - sing·kuh·pee"
My FIL is nearly 87 years old, active and in quite good shape for his age, but syncope happens. He was given a thorough once over and sent home to rest after ruling out anything serious.
But we got into pondering why we non-medical people have different words, that aren't necessarily slang, than medical people. They say syncope, we say fainting.
Many years ago, when I was pondering ways I could both earn money and stay home with the kids, I took a medical transcription course. I finished it but never became a medical transcriptionist, opting instead for home daycare. I managed to remember some of the terminology though, like syncope.
Another word I liked was "debridement" as far as fun words to pronounce go, because my particular transcription course used the French pronunciation. Even wound cleaning sounds sensual in French.
Yesterday, I went in for my annual physical if for nothing else but our insurance puts money in our HSA if we do these things each year. And since I was there, I asked my doctor about a mole on my shoulder that seems to have gotten bigger recently. After taking a look, she referred me to a dermatologist.
Back at home, I contacted the skin doctor office to book an appointment while looking at the notes from my Dr. visit. She'd listed "changing nevus" in the things we'd discussed. Through my adroit deductive reasoning, I determined that nevus (nee·vuhs) means mole. Yup.
...or mole means nevus?
Which came first, and why?
Got any medical terms to share today?
