Tuesday, September 8, 2009

My Favorite Word In Medicine


Sialolithiasis.

A surgeon reminded me of this word yesterday.  

"Isn't it almost like poetry?" He said.  "Sigh-yallow-lith-eye-a-sis."

It does fall trippingly from the tongue.  It means stone formation in the gland that produces spit.

Other favorites:
electroencephalogram
fulguration
chordae tendinae
echocardiography
adenopathy
fluoroscopy
gammaglobulin

but none of these has the same flow as

sialolithiasis.

You know you're an ex-English major when after being up for almost 36 hours straight, with maybe a half-hour snooze between obstetric calls, the one salient memory you have of your work day is a surgeon admiring the word sialolithiasis with you.

7 comments:

KT said...

I love "gubernaculum". :)

Bardiac said...

Zeugma!

Metathesis!

horsetech said...

Inspissated.
Recitative.
Anastamosis.
Giardia.

I love words!

OMDG said...

Pancreaticoduodenectomy
Thiazolidinedione
Borrelia Burgdorferi
Torus Tubarius

diptesh said...

i love anesthesia...resuscitation...serendipity.

Anonymous said...

In medical school, my roommates and I would try to fit parts of the anatomy to cars - doesn't "tensor veli palatini" sound like an Italian car? Sorry if misspelled, that is not part of my day to day vocabulary these days... :-)

Martina said...

My English professor thought 'syphilis' to be the most beautiful word in the English language.