32 Mind-Blowing Analogies That Break Down Medical Mysteries Like Never Before
Psych NP: having ADHD is like trying to juggle all your thoughts at once, and some of the balls just disappear, and some fall and try to roll away, so then you chase after the rolling ball and the other balls fall and roll away out of sight.
The human body is really good at surviving big things, like a shark bite. It clamps down vessels, it clots blood.
But, when we do surgery, your body thinks: aaahhh! Shark bite! And tries to respond the same way.
Problem is, we don’t need all that clotting and clamping. So, we give you anticoagulants and get you up and moving so you don’t make clots where we don’t need them. BC if one of those clots is in a lung or the brain, that’s bad.
Primary care pediatrician – I compare the start of puberty to connecting to dial up internet. Always leaves the parents laughing and the kids in disbelief as I tell them about the “olden times” where connecting to the internet took several minutes and was slow and unreliable once you connected.
As a hospice nurse, explaining how to use meds at end of life, as many are afraid of giving them. If the caretaker has kids, I would ask if they had an epidural and explain “you know how labor can sometimes feel like it’s not progressing, and you’re ready but also scared, and everything is tense? And then they come give you that medicine and it blocks the pain and the anxiety of what’s next starts to go away, and your body does exactly what it was going to do naturally, but with less pain.”
-Flu vaccine is like a bulletproof vest in a war zone
-Insulin is the key that allows glucose into your cells. T1D is when you don’t have any more keys. T2D is when the lock wears out.
When a patient is on an insulin drip they assume turning it up will get them out of DKA faster. I always say, “turning the oven on high isn’t going to cook my pizza faster, it’s just going to be burnt.” When explaining the effects of DKA on electrolytes and such.
“A tooth root abscess is like having a big zit under your jaw bone at the root of a tooth.” Gets the point across but then I apologize for giving us both that mental image.
From 1 to 10, 10 are you sure, 10 is like a bear is pulling you apart and eating your insides while you’re still awake….. suddenly their pain level goes from 10/10 to 6/10… 🤷♀️
The pancreas is like the old man of the neighborhood who doesn’t want anyone in, near or around his lawn. Stones in the duct can sometimes sneak by and the old man doesn’t notice, but if he does, then everyone knows about it. He yells at the kid (stone) directly, he runs and tells his parents (liver/gallbladder) and all the other neighbors (stomach/intestines) who will listen. He ramps up and riles up the whole body and nothing can start to move past it until the old man decides to let it go…
When I explain diabetes I say “insulin is like the bouncer at a club” and with diabetes the bouncer forgot to show up to work so everyone (glucose) is waiting outside the club (the cell) and can’t get in.
And yes, now when I hear “I don’t see how you can hate from outside the club. You can’t even get in” I think of diabetes.
We got taught: shockable rhythms are like WiFi. What do you do when it doesn’t work properly? You reset it.
If there’s a signal but no connection? Shock.
You don’t shock a good rhythm (WiFi) that works (sinus rhythm).
You don’t shock a rhythm where the box has been turned off by the wall (can’t be reset) (asystole).
The parathyroid gland sending out PTH to ask for calcium is like a mom telling her teenage son to pick up his socks off the floor. If he does it the first time she asks, everything is good. If she has to ask a second or third time, she’s going to raise her voice. And if she keeps asking and the socks stay on the floor, she is going to scream at the next person who walks into the house and forcibly take their socks. Your parathyroid glands will steal eventually calcium from your bones.
Urologist. I refer to different foley sizes as ranging from cocktail straw to a boba straw. If you need blood clots to come out, think of them like little boba balls…
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