DEAR ABBY: I just read the letter about the child who was referred to by the nurse as "the little boy in the wheelchair." That reminded me of the time I was in the hospital for a liver biopsy. Over my head, the nurses kept referring to me as "the liver." They referred to the next patient as "the knee." I heard a nurse say, "We'll do the knee after the liver."
I asked them, out of curiosity, why they refer to people like that, and they explained, "We see so many people in one day it would be confusing to refer to people by their names. It helps keep things straight by naming the part of the body scheduled to be worked on." I looked up at them and said, "It's a good thing I'm not in here for hemorrhoids!" -- D.L. IN DALLAS