The term "Pimped" used by the medical field

[seaside*bliss]

Ha ha - I do find that funny - it is so odd, I wonder how it got started?

I was telling him about this post tonight and he said even the very old docs use the term. His terminology of "pimping" is basically asking a question that you think the other person will not know; not like the ladies above mentioned.... He wasn't disrespectful in his asking. He actually knew quite a few things that the doc didn't know and surprised him today =) Of course Garrett is a very witty and competitive person, so it's no surprise that he likes to pimp people!

[SuzySunshine]

I was telling him about this post tonight and he said even the very old docs use the term. His terminology of "pimping" is basically asking a question that you think the other person will not know; not like the ladies above mentioned.... He wasn't disrespectful in his asking. He actually knew quite a few things that the doc didn't know and surprised him today =) Of course Garrett is a very witty and competitive person, so it's no surprise that he likes to pimp people!

Witty and competitive or not, be prepared for him to not be taken so lightly in residency. Pimping an upperclassmen in residency would never fly here or at most other programs I know.

[MrsK]

I was just about to post that DH has never used the word pimping (assuming that they must not use it at his school) and then I just asked him if they use the term.... his response: "All the time."

Ha ha - I do find that funny - it is so odd, I wonder how it got started?

DrK was actually embarassed to tell me. He hates that kind of talk.

[MrsK]

Witty and competitive or not, be prepared for him to not be taken so lightly in residency. Pimping an upperclassmen in residency would never fly here or at most other programs I know.

I'm with Cheri on this. Tread carefully and be sensitive to the hierarchy. If his senior says that the sky is red, he'd better look up and find a way to say that he sees a little pink in the sky that day too.

[seaside*bliss]

Thanks for the advice ladies... He is army so I am sure that he will have his wittiness in check wherever he goes. I think he is just excited to feel more like a doctor now that he started rotations this week. I am sure it will wear off before long

[peggyfromwastate]

I was telling him about this post tonight and he said even the very old docs use the term. His terminology of "pimping" is basically asking a question that you think the other person will not know; not like the ladies above mentioned.... He wasn't disrespectful in his asking. He actually knew quite a few things that the doc didn't know and surprised him today =) Of course Garrett is a very witty and competitive person, so it's no surprise that he likes to pimp people!

Woooah... DH gets pimped all the time. He's PGY-3 now... He would *never* ever ever pretent to pimp an attending or anyone higher along in the hierarchy. Plus your guy is in the military system. He'd better watch out, seriously.

It's like DCJenn said... In residency, it's "Thank you sir, may I please have another" and if you don't get that yet, you will someday...

[scrub-jay]

I'll take pimping over the latest addition to my boss' idiom list: In their shorts. As in, "this is a really complex issue, so we're going to have to really be in each other's shorts to figure it out."

I told him to take that one off the list. He used it again (on accident) so I came back with, "Yeah, Kayla and I were working on the hierarchy, and it's pretty crazy. We were in each other's thongs all night. We had a few a-ha moments, but I'm pretty sure we'll be able to finger the problem by the end of the day."

*still chuckling!* Thank goodness for wit.

-C

[Pollyanna]

Witty and competitive or not, be prepared for him to not be taken so lightly in residency. Pimping an upperclassmen in residency would never fly here or at most other programs I know.

No kidding. Things are laid back here but that would require serious crushing of said resident.

I was telling him about this post tonight and he said even the very old docs use the term. His terminology of "pimping" is basically asking a question that you think the other person will not know; not like the ladies above mentioned.... He wasn't disrespectful in his asking. He actually knew quite a few things that the doc didn't know and surprised him today =) Of course Garrett is a very witty and competitive person, so it's no surprise that he likes to pimp people!

You'll find that most people in medicine are pretty darn competitive, and a lot of them aren't very witty. Disrespectful intentions or not, that could come back to bite him pretty darn quickly. Once he's a senior to someone (anyone!) he can pimp them as much as he wants, but MS3 is pretty much the bottom of the totem pole (until he's an intern, in which case you start out at the bottom all over again).

I certianly don't mean to harp, but we (collectively) have been around this a long time and the scene doesn't change much from playground to playground.

[madeintaiwan]

I have to agree about the pimping. They're all competitive. Unfortunately, the world of clinicals and residency is all about knowing your place. DH is a PGY3 in ortho and the pimping is pretty much only served by the attendings and PGY5s. He may find some attendings who will let it fly, but God help him if he decides to be witty and competitive with the wrong attending. Memories are LONG, communities are SMALL and these people CAN and WILL ruin you if you give them reason to. And if I were him, I wouldn't go around pimping residents either, especially at any programs that he has any interest in matching. You'd be surprised how much say residents have in the rank list and what ridiculous criteria they use for their selection. But hey, some pups gotta learn on their own.

Totally ditto. DH had a friend in med school who was a riot - very dry, witty, sometimes sarcastic that did not translate well into working with attendings. The field is very literal - you say what you mean and mean what you say. Very little gray area.

[Phoebe]

DH knew of pimping when I asked him. I was more surprised by the term "strong work" which I now know the origin of after all these years. He claims it is not from med school. He uses it all the time.

I was more surprised by the term "strong work" which I now know the origin of after all these years. He claims it is not from med school. He uses it all the time.

My dh picked it up during clerkships / intern year (and we know they were at the same institution).

[mommax3]

Strong work made its appearance around here during med school rotations, if I remember correctly. Pimping was used early on, too, although not so much since training (no residents where he works). The one I hate, which may not be common or may be specialty specific, is when he says he has to get someone "tucked in" before coming home. Which usually means that he doesn't "tuck in" his own kids. I just wish he would say "settled in" or something else.....

Some more terms I remember from residency are "flog/ged" as in "my last admission was a real flog" or "I got flogged tonight". As far as I could tell, it meant a patient that was a TON of work. The other one is "malignant", as in "Dr. Whoever (or patient whoever) has a malignant personality" or "that was a malignant conversation".....means the person is difficult to get along with.

[houseelf]

The common use of the phrase "fund of knowledge" strikes me as odd. It is so verbose and used all the time in DH's performance reviews. As in, he has a strong "fund of knowledge".

Seriously? Why can't you just say that he has a strong understanding? It is just such an awkward phrase.

Kelly