The Secret Language of Doctors

Have you ever wondered what doctors and nurses are really saying as they zip through the emergency room and onto elevators, throwing cryptic phrases at one another? Or why they do it? Do you guess at the codes broadcast over the loudspeaker, or the words doctors and nurses use when speaking right in front of patients?

In The Secret Language of Doctors, bestselling author Dr. Brian Goldman opens up the book on the clandestine phrases doctors use to describe patients, situations and even colleagues they detest. He tells us what it means for someone to suffer from incarceritis, what doctors mean when they block and turf, what the various codes mean, and why you never want to suffer a horrendoma. Highly accessible, biting, funny and entertaining, The Secret Language of Doctors reveals modern medical culture at its best and all too often at its worst.

For more than thirty years, Dr. Brian Goldman has been an active participant in and keen observer of the culture of modern medicine. Since 2007, he has hosted White Coat, Black Art, a multi-award-winning show on CBC Radio that reveals what goes on behind a hospital’s sliding doors. Goldman is the author of the bestselling The Night Shift and The Secret Language of Doctors. He lives in Toronto with his family.