When doctors add information about a patient to a computer system, they use a standardised “coding” system. This allows better searching, reporting and data analysis compared to relying on free text entries which could contain typos, abbreviations and synonyms to represent the same data.
I was sent a collection of interesting terms by a friend using the “Read” coding system which is quite old and no longer used in England. Some of them must be really rare to have on your record, and some must have bizarre reasons for their existence.
9N46 – Doctor walked out
TM281 – Legal execution by beheading
TG80A – Accidental burning by soup, stew or curries
T5500 – Spacecraft launching pad accident, occupant of spacecraft injured
1BX5 – C/O sweet/pleasant dreams
TE6Y6 – Run over by unridden animal
TP8 – Injury due to war operations but occurring after war stopped
22J-1 – O/E dead -condition fatal
13HV4 – Seven year itch – marital
7G020 – Buttock lift
T412 – Crushed by lifeboat after abandoning ship
U1282 – Bitten or struck by crocodile or alligator, occurrence at school, other institution or other administered area.
[X] 197 – Victim of cataclysmic storm
I’d love to know why the word “cataclysmic” was added there, since that sounds like it should be world-ending. Then why didn’t they just stop at “bitten by alligator”? Why did they have to have several versions that specify really random locations?
Stranger Coding Tings 