A Verus Fabula

Once Upon a Time in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

I worked as a medical transporter. I started the job while finishing my college stint ('77) on a part time basis (a few months after I left projecting movies behind). Most of the time, I was just transporting hospital inpatients to X-Ray procedures.

It wasn't a bad gig, and was somewhat rewarding in that I was making a (very) small contribution toward the benefit and care of a human being/patient. To be clear, in no way was it a clinical job. But, I did manage to become acquainted with a portion of the medical nomenclature in the performance of my duties. Throughout the work day, I gathered the patients from their hospital room, in a wheelchair or gurney, and brought them to their procedure (or returned them). And like the military (or us tech-heads), medicine loves its use of acronyms. The one you need to know for this decades old tale is NPO:

NPO - latin abbreviation (Nil [or Non] Per Os) for nothing by mouth

This post has been updated and moved to my current blog, which can be found here.