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32 Unhinged Analogies That Explain Complex Medical Problems With Ridiculous Clarity
Article created by: Ieva Pečiulytė
Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers often have to describe complex medical concepts to patients who have very limited knowledge in the field, and out of this necessity, many have had no choice but to digest the difficult language into something easier to understand. So, Rachel Courville, who herself is a veterinarian from Chicago, asked these poets-on-demand to share the absolute wildest analogies they've used to get their points across. People from the industry eagerly answered her call, and only if Shakespeare could read their replies!
Image source: bellavetdvm
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#1
Explained that vaccines are the leaked classified documents your immune system uses to prepare for battle against invaders.
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#2
Depression: Imagine you are walking around with a motorcycle helmet on all the time. You can still make contact with the world, but it takes so much more effort because there is something between you and the rest of the world that interferes.
#3
For the cough taking forever to resolve after pneumonia: it’s like the germs threw a ticker tape parade in your lungs. The people from the parade went home, meaning the germs are dead. But there’s a huge mess in the streets for your body to clean up.
#4
Going to sleep is like a dishwasher.
(During sleep cerebral spinal fluid flows in and out of the brain to remove Amyloid-beta and other metabolic waste that accumulate during the day - identical to how a dishwasher fills then drains to clean your dishware. Going without sleep for extended periods is like eating off a dirty plate with rotting foodstuffs on it.)
#5
I explain the effects of unresolved trauma to patients like playing a game of wack a mole. If you don’t address it, it starts popping up in other areas, like blood pressure, migraines, GI issues, etc.
#6
Fibromyalgia is like when you go the gym for the first time and do a really heavy workout and then everytime you move the following day your muscles scream at you - except you never did the work out and your muscles are still screaming.
#7
When my psych patients get stuck on having several diagnoses I remind them a label is a label. If I call my cat a dog it’s still a cat and needs what it needs. You need what you need so quit focusing on a diagnosis as your identity. You’re you.
#8
Heart attack patient: Your heart isn't a Lambo anymore. It's a Honda. Hondas hate hills. But they'll last you if you treat them right.
Patient was trying to the same amount of work as before right after.
#9
Dehydration is bad for kidneys. You know engines ( old guys nod their heads). Well….what happens when engines run out of oil ( old guys make a face and grimace). Exactly!!! Stay hydrated!
#10
Fertility is like a flower. Some women are like dandelions! They can thrive in all conditions and pop up in full bloom between the cracks in the pavement. However, some (PCOS, luteal phase defect, endometriosis, etc) are more like beautiful, exotic orchids! They’re not broken or damaged; they just need the right food, light, and conditions in order to thrive and bloom 🌺
#11
“Water is the trash bag your kidneys use to take out the trash- are you making your kidneys work with the thin Walmart bag with the hole in the bottom, or are you giving them the good Hefty bag with the rip-stop and the odor blocker?”
#12
Prednisone is like a bad boyfriend. Makes you feel soooo good at first but beats you up if it stays around too long.
#13
Why women get UTIs more frequently than men.
“Idk why the creator designed a sewage plant next to the playground.”
#15
"The pancreas is like that creepy old neighbor who, if he perceives any kind of insult, no matter how small, will decide to burn the rest of the neighborhood down."
#16
Explaining leukemia to my peds onc families: Your bone marrow is a factory. Usually, all of the different workers are there in the right amounts and they all do their jobs and get along. Leukemia is when one of those workers goes rogue and then convinces all of his friends to go rogue. So now you have WAY too many of one kind of worker, and not only that, none of them do their job right AND there's so many of them that none of the other workers can come to work anymore.
Then, for the first month of treatment, we work to empty out the entire factory so hopefully we can hire a whole new work force that doesn't go rogue. And the rest of therapy is to help ensure those rogue workers don't sneakily come back.
#17
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.
#18
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.
#19
When calling a rapid response for a patient. “Have you ever seen a Nascar pit crew? Well in two minutes you’re about to be the car.”
#20
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.
#21
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."
#22
One of my fave OB dr’s once said to a pt who was crowning “your baby is wearing you like a visor!” And I still think it’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.
#23
-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.
#24
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.
#25
“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.
#26
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… 🤷♀️
#27
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…
#28
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.
#29
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).
#30
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.
#32
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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