Pull his/her leg. "You remember back in anatomy, when you dissected the abdomen, and had to move the OMENTUM out of the way? Well, those things can move around, and if they get up into your grill, they hurt like hell."

Doc might even believe it. Send you some referrals to "rule out omentous"

When I rode herd on the Medical Terminology class, a fellow approached me during one of the finals to ask several vaguely worded questions. Finally, I realized that he didn't understand the word 'affinity'. It wasn't one of the medical terms, so I gave him a definition. Sad...

I agree with the comments about google....seriously...save yourself the embarrassment of calling a Doctor and asking that question....or heck, ask one of the nurses you are probably sitting next to! sigh

I just started to read your blog yesterday but I was laughing continously...This is very nice feeling to see the patients and doctors are everywhere similar. I'm a G.P. in Middle Europe but my experiences almost same...At last my english is maybe medium but I understand this term without any vocabulary...:D

I had the same reaction as a couple of posters above - I figured your note read "obvious" and the hospitalist was misreading it as "ominous". My reaction to reading that note is to think ok, what non-"ominous" causes of her headaches DID it show? And I do know what "ominous" means.

Even though I know the literal meaning of the word ominous, I probably would have called. I once had a doctor write an order to hold a drug for "bad heart rate." WTH does that mean? Is the nurse supposed to just guess?

I admit I don't know much about neuro, but the note seems to suggest that maybe the MRI showed some cause for the migraine, even it wasn't ominous to the person who wrote it, but the hospitalitist did phrase it oddly.

I'm just an MS2, so I haven't had any real life experience reading notes and radiology reports, but this note seems particularly vague (I know radiology is a competition in wording things vaguely, but that's different). It seems to imply there's a cause for her headaches on the MRI, but it's simply not ominous. Or it could be a mistake in dictation that was supposed to read "obvious", since that works almost better in the context. I mean, what would he have to report to the patient/other personal? Yes.. there may be a cause found on MRI, but it doesn't look bad... no I have no idea what it is.

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

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