Bambicentric: (adjective) Any system of thought based on the belief that “natural is better.”

Curb Death: (Noun)  Stolled jauntily across the parking lot, up the steps, and into the waiting room but is so debilitated when sitting in triage that a wheelchair is needed to take him to his room.

Dependocracy: (noun) The country-within-a-country bred for dependence by the government and incapable of taking any responsibility for themselves. Characterized by the ability to wait in the Emergency Department for ten hours rather than buy a three-dollar bottle of children’s Tyelenol.

Homo Polycomorbidus: (noun) A precarious species of human who defies evolution and has many severe diseases, any one of which would kill a normal person.

Level One Drama Center: The Modern Emergency Department.

Obligate Anaerobe: (noun) A patient with severe emphysema, on high flow oxygen, who wants to go outside for a smoke.

Panda’s First Law: (aphorism) In the Emergency Department, Bleeding from a big chest wound will attract a crowd of interested onlookers. Rectal bleeding? Not so much.

Panda’s Triad: (eponym) Boredom, Disinterestedness, and Clock-watching. Also known as Internal Medicine Rounding Syndrome (IMRS). Usually manifests during a forty-five minute attending monologue about a patient’s slightly abnormal serum sodium.

Percocetopenia: (noun) Out of drugs. Pusher is out of town. Let’s try the Emergency Department.

Polybabydadic: (adjective) The state of having illegitimate children by several fathers, known or unknown.

Putting Yer’ Granny Down: (euphemism) The act of rationing medical care.

Rule of Threes: (EMS, colloquialism) Bad prognosis for cardiac arrest. “3 AM, 300 pounds, on the 3rd floor.”

Sammich’ : (Noun) Other than dilaudid, vicodin, and percocet, the most requested item in the Emergency Department by drunks and drug seekers. Interestingly enough, nobody is ever allergic to sammiches’.

Soylent Green Channel: (noun) The in-hospital television channel that shows pastoral and otherwise relaxing scenes. Usually the channel of choice in the rooms of patients who are critically ill and not expected to make it. See also “Soylent Green Sign.”

Space Occupying Lesion: (noun) A drunk college student sleeping it off on a hall bed which could be used for someone who really needs it. Usually abusive to the staff when awake and badly in need of an educational ass kicking to complete his degree.

VARF: (noun) “VA Associated Risk Factors.” The usual combination of congestive heart failure, emphysema, diabetes, peripheral vascular disease, alcoholism, 300-pack-year smoking history, coronary artery disease, and below knee amputations which is common in Veterans Administration patients. “Patient is a 78 year-old man with VARF admitted for shortness of breath.”

Wonketariat: (noun) Government functionaries who, having no experience in anything but government (in which they have been involved since Junior High Student Council), nevertheless “craft” incredibly complex laws and regulations to elicit behavioral changes in the proles, all of which have horrific unintended consequences and cost an order of magnitude more than even their most pessimistic estimates. Have a sneaking suspicion that somewhere, somehow, some aspect of life is still dangerously unregulated.