Hospital secrets

What is a "Code Gray" and what you should know if you hear it at the E.R.

A trip to the emergency room can be stressful enough without hearing doctors and nurses speak a language that sounds like a secret code. One minute, someone is asking for medication "STAT," the next there’s a "Code Gray," and another patient is suddenly "NPO." What do those words really mean? Some are official medical terms, others are insider slang, but they all help hospital staff communicate quickly when every second counts. Here are 10 of those codes explained.

The E.R. can be hectic and unpredictable. Most patients are frightened or uncomfortable, but now and then someone becomes aggressive because of pain, confusion, mental illness, or the effects of alcohol or other substances. That’s when you can hear "Code Gray" announced over the speakers.

The code is used to summon security officers to help manage a violent or combative situation. While color codes vary from one hospital to another, Code Gray commonly signals that staff needs extra assistance to protect patients, visitors, and healthcare workers. Even if you know it now, most people in the waiting room never know what happened, and that’s exactly the point.

You have a scheduled surgery, you’re in your bed waiting to be taken to the surgery room, and you ask for a cup of coffee to make the wait lighter. The nurse will probably tell you you’re an NPO. You may think it’s serious, but it’s simply a procedure.

"NPO" is an abbreviation that comes from the Latin phrase Nil Per Os, which means "nothing by mouth." It tells patients they cannot eat, drink, or sometimes even take medication until doctors say it’s safe. The rule is most common before surgery or certain medical tests, when food or liquids could increase the risk of complications or alter the results. It may be frustrating, but it’s an important part of keeping patients safe.

You’ve probably been through the experience of visiting an emergency room, either to get checked or to visit a loved one. In that part of the hospital where everyone is rushing to save lives, you’ve probably heard a doctor asking for the R.C.P. cart or medication "STAT!" It sounds urgent, and that's because it is.

The expression comes from the Latin statim, which means "immediately" or "without delay." Hospitals have used Latin medical terms for centuries, but STAT is one of the few that remains part of everyday conversation. When a doctor says it, the request jumps to the top of the priority list. It doesn’t always refer to a life-or-death situation, but it does mean the medical team needs something done as quickly as possible.

Newborns are always a reason to celebrate at the hospital. Parents usually rest happily next to their child as they receive congratulations from close relatives. However, the hospital is always prepared to handle extremely rare emergencies under "code pink."

If you hear a "Code Pink," it usually means a baby or young child is suspected of being abducted from the hospital. Within seconds, security officers respond, exits may be monitored or blocked, and staff begins following carefully rehearsed procedures. Although different hospitals sometimes use different color codes, Code Pink has become widely recognized across North America as one of the most serious alerts a hospital can issue.

If you’ve ever spent a few days in the hospital, you’ve probably noticed that some patients are walking up and down the halls, while others need help just getting out of bed. When a nurse refers to someone as a "walkie-talkie," it’s actually good news.

This informal expression refers to patients who can walk on their own, use the bathroom without assistance, and handle most basic tasks independently. It’s not an official medical term, of course, but it’s commonly used among healthcare workers because it quickly tells the next shift that the patient requires less hands-on care than many others.

As nurses change shifts, you’ll often hear them give a quick report about each patient. One person may only need medication, while another is described as a "total."

The term is short for a patient who requires total care. They may need help eating, bathing, getting dressed, turning in bed, or moving from one place to another. Although the expression sounds impersonal, it’s simply a practical way for caregivers to communicate how much assistance someone needs.

Most people hear "frequent flyer" and think of an airline reward program. And that’s correct, but in an emergency room, the phrase has a very different meaning.

A frequent flyer is an informal nickname for patients who repeatedly return to the hospital, often due to chronic illness, recurring medical conditions, or other ongoing health issues. Behind the light-hearted nickname is often a difficult reality. Many of these patients are simply dealing with medical problems that require regular emergency care, and the expression is just a way to make the experience a bit lighter among the familiar faces of doctors and nurses.

Not all codes are for patients. The next time you’re in a hospital, look closely at what the nurse is pushing from room to room. It may look like a small rolling desk with a computer on top. Staff often call it a "WOW," short for "workstation on wheels."

As hospitals switched from paper charts to electronic medical records, these mobile computers became essential. Nurses use them to review test results, scan medications, update patient charts, and check doctors’ orders without leaving the bedside. The name sounds funny, but the technology helps caregivers spend more time with patients instead of walking back and forth to a nursing station.

After getting a shot or having blood drawn, most patients never think about where the used needle ends up. It certainly doesn't go into an ordinary trash can.

Hospitals place needles, scalpels, and other sharp medical instruments into special containers designed to prevent accidental injuries. These sturdy, puncture-resistant boxes are sealed when full and safely disposed of in accordance with strict health regulations. This not only protects nurses, but it also protects cleaning crews, waste handlers, and even the public from dangerous needle sticks. It’s one of the most important safety measures in every hospital, even though most patients never notice it.

If you’ve ever watched a medical drama, you've probably seen a patient become so agitated that several staff members rush into the room. In situations like that, a doctor or nurse may ask for a "B-52." But the name has nothing to do with numbers themselves; it actually comes from a medicine.

B-52 is hospital slang for a fast-acting injection used to calm down patients who are severely combative or at risk of harming themselves or others. The nickname comes from a commonly used combination of medications that usually include diphenhydramine, haloperidol, and lorazepam. It’s strictly reserved for when other methods of calming the patient haven’t worked.

CHANCE, SIMPLE INSPIRATION OR STUBBORNNESS?

Discover 10 Successful Products Originally Invented For Other Purposes

Image: Isaac Weatherly

It seems that the inventors listed in this article took to heart the famous phrase of French chemist Antoine Lavoisier "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed". Many of them were working on other things when chance had it that their creations found a different meaning.

Far from just discarding their research, they —or other visionaries later— used these technological advances to develop products we still use to this day. Did you know that the pacemaker, Coca-Cola, and the corkscrew originally had totally different purposes? Keep reading to discover the origin of these and 7 other inventions that came about while we were busy making other plans.

Image: ulleo

Today, the pacemaker saves thousands of lives, but it was originally designed for a whole other purpose. Wilson Greatbatch was a prolific American inventor who held more than 300 patents. In 1956 he was working on an audio recorder that was meant to be placed in the heart to record its sounds. However, as he was building it, he misplaced a resistor. This caused his device to produce a pulse that would sync with the heartbeat instead of recording sounds.

Greatbatch realized that his invention was of little use as a sound recorder, yet it could be used to monitor the rhythm of a sick heart. He presented it to surgeon William Chardack in 1958, who, after testing it on dogs, developed the first pacemaker to be implanted in a human being in 1960.

Image: Kelly Sikkema

Have you noticed how Kleenex has gone from being a brand name to a generic term for any disposable tissue? These super-thin, soft paper rectangles are now a synonym for sniffles and sneezes. Even Oxford included the word in its dictionary! However, that was not what Kimberly-Clark, the company that originally created them, had in mind when it launched them in 1924.

Initially, the company promoted Kleenex as a skincare product, for cleansing makeup. Nevertheless, they soon began to receive letters from customers suggesting another type of application: they could be useful to alleviate the effects of colds and the flu. Finally, in 1930, the tissues were relaunched on the market with the slogan "Don't Carry a Cold in Your Pocket".

Image: Ron Lach

Whether it's to relieve tension or to secure a delicate object during a house move, we've all had bubble wrap in our homes at one time or another. Bubble wrap was invented by engineers Alfred W. Fielding and Marc Chavannes in 1957, but their original idea was very different from the use we give it today. What these two inventors really wanted was to create textured wallpaper.

At that time, wallpaper was very popular and they thought their concept would be a success, although it was far from it. Two years later, Frederick W. Bowers, a salesman promoting the failing bubble wrap, heard that IBM was looking for a way to pack their brand new, huge IBM 1401 computer to ship to their customers. Immediately, Bowers saw his opportunity and bubble wrap became the go-to packaging system for the tech pioneer and all the products to come.

Image: Mishaal Zahed

Nowadays, Listerine is one of the best-selling mouthwashes in the world. However, when the American chemist and doctor Joseph Lawrence, inspired by the research of Sir Joseph Lister, formulated the product in 1879, he did not imagine that it would end up being in the bathrooms of so many households.

Listerine was originally created as a surgical antiseptic and as a cure for gonorrhea. In 1888 an article recommended its application on sweaty feet to treat fungus. In the following years, it was marketed as a cure for colds, an additive for cigarettes, and a remedy for dandruff. It was not until the 1920s that the brand found its niche in the market: the battle against bad breath.

Image: Thirdman

The popular fast-drying adhesive known as Super Glue was invented by American engineer Harry Coover in 1942. Coover was working for the Kodak photographic company and was looking for a plastic material that would be highly translucent. He ended up inventing cyanoacrylate, a very promising compound but not quite adequate for what he needed.

This new material had a surprising property: it was liquid and sticky and, in contact with air, it solidified quickly. Coover perfected his invention for a while, but its first commercial use came several years later, during the Vietnam War: it was used to glue soldiers' bones together when fractures occurred. Eventually, the health authorities banned super glue as a sanitary product, although they did allow its domestic use to repair broken things.

Image: Zahraa Hassan

What is now the world's most famous soft drink was actually born as a substitute for morphine, and was later sold as a cure for various ailments: headaches, nerves, indigestion, and even impotence. Little did its creator suspect that, a century later, his invention would be known worldwide.

John Pemberton, a pharmacist and veteran of the American Civil War, had become addicted to morphine, a drug he took to relieve the pain caused by the wounds he had received. Concerned about his addiction, he started looking for an alternative. Thus, he created an alcoholic beverage infused with coca leaves that he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. He began selling it in his drugstore for 5 cents a glass. When in 1886 the state of Atlanta passed a law restricting the sale of any alcohol, Pemberton developed Coca-Cola, which was basically a non-alcoholic version of his earlier invention.

Image: StockSnap

Microsoft Solitaire, along with Minesweeper, are considered the two most played games in history. They were installed by default in the Windows operating system, and it is estimated that more than 1 billion people have played them at some time. One might think that these games were intended as a pastime for users, but that was not the case.

Microsoft developed Solitaire and Minesweeper not as video games, but as learning tools. They were created with the sole purpose of teaching users how to operate the mouse. Before Windows, operating systems were based on typed commands. Along with the new OS, the mouse was introduced, and although it may sound bizarre today, at that time few people knew how to use it. These games required continuously moving the mouse all over the screen and doing a lot of precise clicking. So now you know, all those hours you spent playing were actually learning a new skill!

Image: MART PRODUCTION

NASA has given mankind numerous cool inventions, from smoke detectors to running shoes. Perhaps one of the most curious, however, is the cordless vacuum cleaner. And no, they were not invented to clean out the dust from spaceships!

In fact, NASA needed a gadget capable of extracting samples from the surface of the Moon, without the astronauts having to bend down all the time —let's face it, their suits aren't the most flexible. So they contacted Black & Decker engineers, who, after some research, produced a handheld vacuum cleaner that worked without wires. Years later, the company used this same technology to manufacture the DustBuster, the first commercial cordless vacuum cleaner, launched in 1979.

Image: Skitterphoto

What would be of dinner parties without a corkscrew? This small object has become essential to enjoy a good bottle of wine among friends. But in its beginnings, the corkscrew had a very different use than today. Its origins date back to the 17th century and have a military background.

A 1795 patent indicated they were used for extracting bullets that got stuck inside muskets. And also —why not?— to extract bullets from inside a wound, when they were deeply embedded in the bone or the muscle. It was not until the 18th century when cork stoppers began to be used in wine bottles, that the corkscrew acquired the use it has maintained for more than 200 years.

Image: Thirdman

It is well known that nowadays blind people use Braille to read. Yet, this system was inspired by another language created some years earlier. In 1815, French army captain Charles Barbier invented the night language, a written alphabet intended to be read with the fingers, completely in the dark. It was actually developed for spies so that they could read coded messages in the middle of the night without being detected by the enemy.

Years later, after completing his military work, it occurred to Charles Barbier that his Alphabet could be used by the blind. But it was not until 1824 that Louis Braille, a 15-year-old who had lost his sight after a childhood accident, developed the tactile writing system that to this day is used by blind people all around the world.