noun
General Slang
Zebra
· noun · medical
A rare diagnosis when the common one is far more likely.
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Definitions
1
A rare or exotic diagnosis that an over-keen doctor reaches for when the patient almost certainly has the boring common thing. Used as a warning ('stop zebra hunting') and as praise ('she nailed the zebra'). Med students love them; attendings make them rule out the horse first.
“Chest pain in a 55-year-old smoker isn't a zebra — book the troponin before you start googling porphyria.”
by community
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2
The patient with the rare disease itself — adopted as a badge of honour by communities like Ehlers-Danlos sufferers, who got tired of being dismissed as too unusual to be real.
“She's a zebra — three specialists missed the EDS before someone finally listened.”
by community
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Zebra In A Sentence
Chest pain in a 55-year-old smoker isn't a zebra — book the troponin before you start googling porphyria.
She's a zebra — three specialists missed the EDS before someone finally listened.
Origin & Usage
From Dr Theodore Woodward's late-1940s aphorism to his interns at Maryland: 'When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.' In Maryland, hoofbeats meant a horse. The Ehlers-Danlos community reclaimed the zebra as their mascot.
Variants
zebra hunting
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