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Once marrying a med-student, I embarked on the wonderful and fantastical journey of working in the healthcare field. The following stories are all true. ALL TRUE, though somewhat embellished here or there.

Friday, January 11, 2013

To Krump, or not to Crump?

It's funny how many things in the medical world are completely different from the regular world.  Attitudes, moral views, hours, holidays-- all of these are experienced differently when you work in a hospital.  This is especially evident in acronyms, terms, and slangs.

Our best friend is an avid dancer.  We would all sit together and watch America's Best Dance Crew.  There was one particular dance that caught my eye.  It had a raw, warrior-esque energy to it.  It was intriguing to watch, honestly.  I was captivated by how unique it was in comparison to other dances and how entranced the dancers themselves seemed to be.

Krumping (Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise) is an acronym for a dance dubbed and pioneered by "Tight Eyez".  It has rapidly spread in popularity due to its powerful, sharp movements that resemble an almost tribal like dance.

Imagine Baby Doc's reaction when her Attending Doctor, during her Internal Medicine rotation at the hospital, exclaimed to her and the team that "the patient is crumping."



Well, there is another word.  Phonetically, it's identical.  Its definition is wildly different, though.  Where krumping is a trendy, emotion-filled dance with roots from an African-American community in South Central Los Angeles; Crumping has its roots in the medical field.


You see, in the hospital, the definition of crumping is "a slang medical term indicating that a patient's medical condition is rapidly worsening."  In the above diagram, you can see the difference in EKG readings.

*Author's note:  I've been informed that the first of the two EKGs would suggest that the patient is in a state of tachycardia.  This may or may not happen if you were to "krump" for long durations of time. Please consult your physician before engaging in any krump-like activities.

She never really told me about how her attending doctors reacted.  What she doesn't describe to me, I choose to make up myself.  This is how I think it went down immediately after her exclamation.




It was an honest mistake.



Now you know.

1 comment:

  1. Patients be gettin' buck wild in the hospital all day everyday!

    ...Wait that's bad!

    ReplyDelete