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.
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?