UNKNOWN, USA – Waiting rooms have seen record numbers of infuriated patients this week, after one patient stumbled across “idiopathic” in the dictionary. The patient, who has quickly become known as Dictionary Guy, led to the definition going viral. Healthcare professionals are struggling to address the angry masses.
“You mean to tell me I have a diagnosis that literally means ‘I don’t know where the f*ck this came from?!'” shouted a man with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). “Couldn’t they just tell me, ‘No one knows why you have this terrible disease’?!”
Several people have been idiopathically-picketing nearby hospitals, holding signs reading “idiopathological liars,” and chanting, “We’re here, yadayadayada, and we don’t know why we’re not going anywhere.”
One patient was disappointed for a different reason. “Honestly, I’m upset about the leak,” noted a despondent patient with idiopathic hypersomnia. “Having a big word always helped me garner sympathy from people who didn’t know what it meant. Now it just doesn’t sound as serious. Welp, looks like it’s fourth-nap-of-the-day o’clock.”
“I used to sound smart. Now I just feel stupid,” mourned one man with primary idiopathic something disorder (PISD). “All because one asshole decided to read the book with the words in it. Who cares about what words mean?! I am literally fuming.”
Doctors have been trying to inform these accidentally-informed patients that the word is merely used as part of the medical vernacular and is not intended to mislead anyone. “To be fair,” they add, “you could have Googled it.”
