I’m trying out a little MT plugin that should make my life easier, by automagically adding the explanations for medical acronyms. This is take 2 for those of you reloading every 3 minutes.
PID
GOMER
(PID)
MI, CHF, COPD
ACLS
I’m just testing various formats. Sorry to have to do this ‘live’ but I have no choice.
For those who try this plugin, I’m modifying the acronym database using Word. Seems like overkill, but it works.
OK, enough with the tryouts. It works! Now all I have to do is make an acronym entry for every medical acronym I know. Yikes.
ACLS, IDDM, EOA
Can’t leave it alone. Sorry.
Update: the acronym plugin was interfering with my future posting, so it’s outta here. That’s why the acronymys don’t work, sorry.
This might make things easier:
http://acronymfinder.com/
As an allergist/immunologist with a particular interest in Primary Immune Deficiencies, I’m often puzzled by the look of distaste on the faces of med students, residents and fellows when I mention “PID.” Haha.
For the not-so medical, PID usually refers to Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (aka Sexually Transmitted Disease or VD) which is just about everyone’s least favorite thing to deal with.
Ewww.
Dr. Andy
I need one of those for my life! Just carry it around with me. Get one that someone can click on for the definition ..and I’d really be in heaven!
PPS (husband/mother), MG, SLE, IR,GERD,PCOS,(self),TS,OCD,ADHD(kids), etc etc etc …then I’d never have to explain a thing again! Ahhhhh …how much easier would life be?
You have to be careful with those things, though. Errors are very easy to make.
For example, if you ever feel the need to write something more computer centric, PID also stands for Process ID. Actually, many acronyms have multiple meanings (three PIDs just so far in this post and its comments)…
Most amusing case I encountered in the real world with auto-acronym generators was on a blog translating Ms to Microsoft. But they have several posts talking about women, Ms. some-such or other.
This is especially bad if the plug-in also goes over comments, because you can’t control what commenters write, and the commenters don’t know in advance what words they use will be mis-explained…
You’d be better off finding a way to easily add acronyms to the editor when writing posts, rather than something that process them afterwards.
OK, but let’s remember, these are ER acronyms. They are, therefore, lowest-common-denominator acronyms.
Yaron,
So, I?m just guessing here that the word ?engineer? is somehow employed when discussions concerning your livelihood come up?
Are there any Google-like sites which list medical acronyms? I found http://www.medilexicon.com, which is of some help, although it includes foreign language acronyms, doesn’t rank by frequency of use, and has a not very readable typeface.