As I sit in the box office on a slow day, trying to work up the motivation to dive into 19 pages of notes about diarrhea in piglets, I can't keep my mind from wandering...
So here's some random trivia for you. Members of the veterinary profession looooove acronyms and abbreviations, and lately I've realized just how much we like to add 'x' to other letters of the alphabet and decide that it stands for something. Here are some examples for you:
Ax: anesthesia
Bx: biopsy
Cx: cortex
Dx: diagnosis
Fx: fracture
Hx: history
Px: prognosis
Rx: prescription
Sx: surgery (sometimes 'symptoms')
Tx: treatment or therapy
Vx: vaccination
So I can say: "Pp w/hx of adv rxn to ax during liver bx; no recent vx or rx; rDVM dx'd w/PSS & tx'd pt w/SAMe & NSAIDs."
Which means: "Patient presented with a history of adverse reaction to anesthesia during liver biopsy; no recent vaccines or prescription medication; regular vet diagnosed with portosystemic shunt and treated patient with s-adenylmethionine and non-steroidal anti-inflammatories." (Which is not actually how you'd probably want to treat a portosystemic shunt, but I'm just trying to make a point: abbreviations are awesome!)
Now I have to go study piglet diarrhea.... bummer.
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piglet diarrhea can't be too bad?
ReplyDeleteWhat is a portosystemic shunt? Do I want one? Should I be jealous?
ReplyDeleteHey Law Boy: Normally you have big blood vessels that take everything absorbed by your intestines and bring it all to your liver before it goes anywhere else - that way your liver can detoxify the bad stuff before it hits the rest of your body. A portosystemic shunt means there is an abnormal vessel (usually present at birth) that takes blood from the intestines and bypasses the liver so you get toxins in the rest of your body (like ammonia in your brain, which = badness). So no, you don't want one. :)
ReplyDeletePiglet diarrhea wasn't that bad (unless you're the piglet). I just wasn't excited about it after already studying dog and cat diarrhea and still having 40 or 50 pages of horse, cow, sheep, and goat diarrhea to go...
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