The Most Common Terminologies in Nursing Every New Nurse in Canada Should Know About

Nurses provide healthcare services that can potentially save a person's life. The nature of nursing is such that it focuses on the critical health care of patients. Therefore, it is important to use nursing terminologies that are easily understood by other healthcare professionals who may otherwise provide care to the same patient but at different times. Therefore, if a student wants to study nursing in Canada, it is imperative to know the nursing terms so that things like client assessment, diagnosis, history analysis, and implementation of care strategies can be done properly. In this blog let us look at the most common nursing terms used in the nursing field in Canada.

The patient is “tachy”

Here the word “tachy” is pronounced tacky and has a whole new meaning in nursing terminology. When a nurse or doctor says, “The patient is tachy”, it means that the patient has tachycardia, which is a fast heart rate. It is common for nurses to look at the heart rate monitor and say “He/she is tachy”, which only means that the patient's heart rate is elevated and beating too fast.

Frequent flyer

The term “frequent flyer” is commonly used to describe a patient who is repeatedly admitted to hospital. The patient may be taken to A&E frequently or be hospitalised repeatedly. In addition, the term "frequent flyer" also means that the patient is recognised by the regular staff working in the hospital.

Walkie-Talkie

A “walkie-talkie” is a patient who requires minimal bedside nursing care in the hospital. These are the patients who can feed themselves, have a low risk of falling and can go to the toilet by themselves. These are the patients who are at the end of their hospital stay. In most cases, these patients are ready to be discharged and are only waiting for an order from the authorities or for someone to come and collect them.

Can I get a "waste"?

Nurses are often made responsible for managing and administering narcotics to patients as prescribed by doctors. Not all narcotics come in a prescribed dosage or in the amount needed by the patients. Therefore, nurses are sometimes required to “waste” the partially used narcotics.

Have you had a bowel movement?

If you have been trained as a nurse, you will often see an experienced nurse asking this question after abdominal surgery. Any time the abdomen is operated on, there is a good chance that things will not work properly. This is a condition called 'ileus'. When an ileus occurs, the patient is unable to have a bowel movement.

Banana bag

A “banana bag” is a yellow-coloured bag for intravenous fluids. It has a yellow colour characteristic of a banana and also contains many nutrients such as vitamins B9, B1, sugar and salt water. The multivitamin component in the banana bag makes the fluid look yellow. These bags are used to treat alcohol withdrawal patients. Nurses are the ones who handle and administer the medications, so they are the ones who give the “banana bag” to patients. Nurses can often be heard saying “Get me the banana bag”.

Code Brown

The term “Code Brown” refers to the emergency situation of a bowel movement in a patient's bed. This happens when the patient has faecal incontinence. Often, nurses may also ask for help in managing the Code Brown, including getting more gloves, nappies, new sheets, a bedpan, clean clothes, etc. When the nurses say "Code Brown" it means they need all these things.

Ad Lib

The word “ad lib” means “as you wish”. It is a shortened form of the Latin phrase “Ad Libitum”. You will often hear nurses say, “The patient is ad lib”. This means that the patient is not restricted from any physical activity. Ad Lib also means that the patient can get in and out of bed without help and can walk as much as the patient needs.

OOB

OOB is an acronym for “out of bed”. Sometimes patients need help to get OOB to sit in the chair or they need to be reminded by their nurses to get out of bed. These are the patients who feel comfortable staying in bed throughout their hospital stay. Nurses usually try to get these patients 'OOB to chair' at least once during their shift so that their lungs can expand and they can breathe better.

PRN

The term “PRN” means as needed or whenever needed. It is the short version of the Latin phrase “Pro Re Nata”. Literally, the word “pro” means for, “re” means a thing, and “nata” means born. So the word PRN or “Pro Re Nata” means as the circumstances or situations may arise.

Conclusion

In addition to enabling clear and concise communication between nurses, standard nursing terminology also helps healthcare professionals to receive and send patient data with minimal misinterpretation. If you need help to make your nursing career in Canada, get in touch with our student counsellors at MWT Education Consultancy.