Today's new word--SPHYGMOMANOMETER

Perhaps you were calling it "that blood pressure thingy." Sphygmo is from the Greek word for pulse; manos for thin; and metron for measure. I like to read medical journals, so I could fill up a blog with the words I don't recognize, but this one was in a JAMA essay called "Drama in Medicine?" and I have to admit, I didn't get his point, but he did refer to the drama of the otoscope and sphygmomanometer. According to my Tabor's, it's an instrument for determining arterial blood pressure indirectly. I have always had low blood pressure; if the assistant is new, she immediately does it over. But drama?

It's nice to know that doctors too need to brush up on their medical terms, not just retired veterinary librarians. This issue (Jan. 7, 2009) had an article "How to use an article about genetic association," where the hypothetical case is presented that a patient consults with his doctor because Alzheimer's Disease afflicted both his father and grandfather, so he wanted to know about genetic tests. So the doctor consults his texts and finds an array of confusing words, plus more than 1000 publications on genetic associations of AD with mention of hundreds of genes. So there is a full page of a basic glossary--about 25 words before launching into the topic--how to read and understand the genetic literature.