Mine is OOO for Out Of Office. I always misread it in my head like a ghost and it takes me a few seconds to process. It also doesn’t translate to speech—you have to say the whole thing.
Interested to see if others have similar acronyms they beef with.
After 20 years in EMS, (see how it starts immediately - Emergency Medical Services), The whole bloody damned field is nothing but acronyms for as far as the eye can see.
From BPM - Beats per minute, to ABC - Airway, Breathing, circulation, (which today is more like ACB - Airway, Circulation, Breathing) to OPQRST - Onset, provoke/pallation, Quality, Region/Radiation, Severity, Time to A-Fib - Atrial Fibrillation to SOB - Shortness of Breath.
I hate them all…
Is there a way to say OPQRST that isn’t just reading each letter? Because if not then that is a mouthful
I read it as Opie Crust.
Nope. It’s taught OPQRST.
Pt is A+Ox3 (Patient correctly answered three questions to determine that they are alert and oriented)
Which I always hated.
“Can you tell me your name?” - Folks, this is the last thing to go, along with birthday.
“Where are you right now?” - In bed? On the floor? At home? A million correct answers. “What date is it today?” - Almost every single provider I’ve seen who asked this then checked their phone to see if the answer is correct.
Alternatives have to be well thought-out, though:
“How many fingers am I holding up?” - That’s testing eyesight as well, and can easily provide a wrong answer if eyesight is bad.
And then there’s the language barrier. How’s your Spanish? Your Farsi? Your Urdu? Your Arabic/Vietnamese/Russian?
I once had to ask a patient, who was Spanish-speaking, for permission to transport, explaining that their permission also allowed me to treat, bill insurance, all that… at the time I had very little Spanish. Her husband listened politely and turned to her, saying “Just say yes.” After that, I knew I needed more language skills…
WHAT is your name?
WHAT is your favourite colour?
WHAT was the capital of Assyria?
I can’t imagine what medics and corpsman have to endure, being subject to the military acronyms and then medical on top of it.
This acronym is even more frustrating because “PQRST” is a completely different ilitialism to OPQRST!
And don’t forget to SAMPLE your patient either. And when filling out your run report, make sure you fill in the Glasgow Coma Score. And remember - even a toaster gets a score of 1!
Thanks for reminding me, I’m going to have random flashbacks all day now.