Massage Clinic

If you didn't already know, I'm working for credit in a student massage clinic at my school. In order to "further the profession," and for insurance purposes, we have to be able to speak medical, just like anyone else who is required to wear scrubs for their profession. This means that the medical abbreviations used on insurance forms and by doctors and nurses are the same abbreviations we use in clinic. Usually. Today, there was a clerical error discovered.

In case you are not aware of basic anatomy, the Erector Spinae group is a set of three muscles (Iliocostalis, Longisimis, Spinalis) that runs up the side of the spine. It keeps your spine erect. If a therapist finds any muscle to be tense on a client, we are supposed to note it in their chart. Today, Janna was handed the chart of Client C, and looked back on the previous massage session to see if there were any problems.

The last therapist to work on C happened to make a mistake. Instead of marking that there was "(Mild/Moderate/Severe) tension in the erectors," this therapist wrote, "Tight erection." The clinic supervisor, Sandy, was called in to have a look. It took her half a second to process it, and the look on her face as she came to the realization of what it said was priceless. She then had a knee-jerk reaction somewhere between getting a tooth pulled and grabbing a high-voltage wire. Then she sighed and said, "One of these days I'm going to lose my job..." And walked out.