The House of God - Glossary

Glossary

Several of the terms common to the jargon of junior hospital staff were widely popularized by the book:

• To turf (verb: to find any excuse to refer a patient to a different department or team)
• To bounce (verb: a turf that has returned to its first department)
• Gomer (noun: "get out of my emergency room" - a patient who is frequently admitted with complicated but uninspiring and incurable conditions)
• LOL in NAD (noun: "little old lady in no apparent distress" - an elderly patient who following a minor fall or illness, would be better served by staying at home with good social support, rather than being admitted into a hospital with all the iatrogenic risks of modern medicine. Compare "NAD" = "no abnormality detected" or "no apparent distress" (used to record the absence of abnormal signs on examination).
• Zebra (noun: a very unlikely diagnosis where a more common disease would be more likely to cause a patient's symptoms - from the common admonition that "if you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras").