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tratamiento deplectivo

Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

MIR

English translation:

Internal Medicine

Added to glossary by Joseph Tein
Apr 2, 2011 04:39
14 yrs ago
44 viewers *
Spanish term

MIR

Spanish to English Medical Medical (general) hospital departments
I think this stands for "Medicina Interna" but I want to make sure I'm not missing something.

This is from the hospital discharge report of a patient with congestive heart failure. The report describes history and echocardiographic findings, and goes on to say: "No HTA significativa. Signos de PVC aumentada. Ultima descompensación de ICC en abril, requiriendo ingreso en *MIR* [dates] con buena evolución bajo tratamiento ... "

So does MIR = Medicina Interna, or is there some other department/service involved here? My slight doubt is because this is a heart disease patient, and I would think she would have gone to a cardiology unit.

The report is from Spain ... but more specifically Catalunya.

Thanks for your help!
Proposed translations (English)
3 +1 Internal Medicine and Radiology
3 IMR (Internal Medicine and Rheumatology)

Discussion

Joseph Tein (asker) Apr 11, 2011:
Thanks to everyone ... for your contributions, comments, noble gestures, and other supportive input.

Sorry ... forgot to add this sooner!
Charles Davis Apr 3, 2011:
@pclews Fair point; we're all taking time out from our own stuff to try to help. Jenni's call was a good idea and has effectively proved the point, but as far as I'm concerned this has been, as so often, a joint effort.

BTW, although there is a lack of information on Viladecans on the Internet, I notice that Rheumatology comes under Internal Medicine at Vall d'Hebron, although it doesn't form part of the title.
http://www.vhebron.net/vhcat.htm
Peter Clews Apr 3, 2011:
I agree.. with Charles that it was a noble gesture of Jenni to call. But perhaps it was also a noble gesture on my part to call my Catalan nurse friend, and then search for information to support her suggestion? And as for challenging information, that's an integral part of this website, e.g., that's what the "disagree" option is for. And both Charles' suggestion of Radiology and my suggestion of Rheumatology were challenged or perhaps we should say 'doubted', by Jenni, on the grounds that she couldn't see a relationship with heart disease. I don't take it as a personal offense, she's expressing her professional opinion, giving her reasons, and I am doing the same. And both of us are trying to help the asker find the correct translation. BTW, I agree that "Internal Medicine" is probably the best translation. If there's no indication that this patient received radiological or rheumatological treatment, the inclusion of one or other of these in the Internal Medicine dept is presumably irrelevant.
Emma Goldsmith Apr 3, 2011:
@ Jenni Great job, Jenni. Please post your findings as an answer so that Joseph can give the points to you. You deserve them :) On second thoughts, maybe I should give my agree to Charles, as he came to this conclusion too :)
Charles Davis Apr 3, 2011:
@Jenni And it was a noble gesture, well beyond the call of duty. It makes no sense to challenge the information you received. It is quite clearly reliable, other lines of evidence support it and there is no valid reason to doubt it. As far as I'm concerned, case closed!
Jenni Lukac (X) Apr 3, 2011:
I called the hospital as a professional courtesy to Joseph. He can make what he will of the information I received. A good day to everyone!
Charles Davis Apr 3, 2011:
@pclews I don't find it strange at all. If you have departments called "Medicina Interna" and "Medicina Intensiva", and so you want to add a letter to "MI" so they won't be confused, which is it to be? "MIN" won't do, obviously, nor "MIT", nor "MIE". Any of these could be either. What one would normally do in this situation is select a letter that occurs in one but not in the other, ie., that occurs in "interna" but not in "intensiva". And actually the only letter that fits that requirement is R. So for this purpose, far from being insignificant, R is the most significant letter in the word.
Peter Clews Apr 3, 2011:
Actually, I think you've proved my point! INT as an abbreviation for INTelligence only takes letters from the start of the word, which is the general tendency in English: Gen. for GENeral, Admin. for ADMINistration, Bros. for BROtherS (this has a final S because it's plural). The Spanish tend to use more letters from the end of the word: Gral. for GeneRAL, ADMON for ADMinistraciÓN, Hnos. for HermaNOS. But in neither case do they include random letters from the middle of the word, this only happens if there's a reason for it. Eg, PMN = PolyMorphoNuclear leukocytes, where "polymorphnuclear" is a compound word and the letters represent its parts.
Jenni Lukac (X) Apr 3, 2011:
Well, for what it's worth, this was from the "horse's mouth", and while it's not uncommon for the Spanish to form acronyms/abbreviations this way, it also happens in English, for example in OSINT, MASINT, where the "INT" stands for intelligence. (I have no vested interest in the precision of what I was told when I called the hospital and I have removed my suggestion which was "Cardiology Dept.")
Peter Clews Apr 3, 2011:
Sorry, but I don't believe it! I can't see any sense in taking a totally insignificant letter from the middle of a word to make an abbreviation. It's not even the start of a section of the word, it's the *last* letter of the sylllable. I think the nice person who told you this simply didn't know what the R meant, realised that there was an R in Interna, and thought "Oh that must be it"... and then represented this to you as fact instead of guesswork.

On the other hand, just because the department's title includes something with an R (Rheumatism, Radiology or whatever) doesn't mean that all patients admitted get the R treatment. After all, if you go to an Ear, Nose and Throat dept. with earache, they're not going to treat your nose and throat as well, just because they're part of the department's name.
Jenni Lukac (X) Apr 3, 2011:
Ta-ta!!! And the answer is: Internal Medicine. The very nice person who answered my call explained that the letter "R" is part of "interna", so nothing needs to be added to Internal Medicine. A nice day to everyone who racked their brains on this one.
Emma Goldsmith Apr 3, 2011:
FWIW, after looking up all these useful refs provided by Jenni and Charles, I agree with Charles that this probably just means "Internal Medicine".
Charles Davis Apr 2, 2011:
Abbreviations I haven't seen a complete list of units at Viladecans. At Bellvitge, they have Medicina Interna and Medicina Intensiva. At Vall d'Hebron, the largest hospital in Catalonia, they have these two and also Malalties Infeccioses. In this situation, you're not going to use MI as an abbreviation, because it will cause confusion. You're going to add another letter so you can tell them apart. This, I believe (as I said in the note to my answer) is very probably the explanation for the "R"; it doesn't stand for anything, it just serves to distinguish one "MI" from another. Even if Viladecans doesn't have Medicina Intensiva (the blog I quoted says they don't have a UCI), these may well be standard acronyms across the Catalan Health Area (Institut Català de la Salut).
Charles Davis Apr 2, 2011:
"Organización del servicio: el Hospital de Viladecans es muy pequeñito, pero se basa en el servicio de Medicina Interna... Los 3 primeros meses de R1 se está en el servicio de Medicina Interna y, después, se empiezan las rotaciones obligatorias y las optativas, en casi todos los servicios excepto UCI, de la que no dispone el hospital. La diferencia está en que, en cada rotación de 3 meses, 1 se pasa en el hospital y los otros 2 meses se hacen en el Hospital de Bellvitge. Esta es la tónica durante el año de R1-R2.
A partir de R3, se vuelve al servicio de Interna del hospital, y se sale sólo 4 meses para hacer Infecciosas en Bellvitge y 3 meses más para hacer sistémicas en Vall d'Hebrón, ya que son las dos áreas más flojas en Viladecans."
http://www.infodoctor.org/rss/rss/?cat=13729

The hospital's webpage is "en construcció", unfortunately (
http://www.hospitaldeviladecans.com/ ). But it's clearly a small hospital and has some sort of relationship with Bellvitge (fancy that!).
MIR is definitely Medicina Interna at Bellvitge... Sorry, that's going too far: there are strong indications that MIR is Medicina Interna at Bellvitge.
Joseph Tein (asker) Apr 2, 2011:
Viladecans abbreviations Thank you Jenni for putting all of this effort into this. Just looking at those abbreviations quickly, it would appear that ANEST points to "anesthesia/anesthesiology" and CIR points to "cirugía" ... don't have time to think about the others now! I appreciate your input; I'm sure we'll get this MIR clarified.
Jenni Lukac (X) Apr 2, 2011:
Emma might want to take a look at this slideshare in order to interpret it. It is specifically about the triage and organization of the Viladecans emergency ward (ingresada might be used even for that department/ward in Spain). It mentions "levels 5,4,3,2 as "emergency service", then "levels 1 and 2 with an arrow pointing to MIR, CIR,COT, ANEST. So maybe MIR is a general internal medicine ward. The question is the "R". http://www.slideshare.net/polulo/soluciones-imaginativas-en-...
Jenni Lukac (X) Apr 2, 2011:
No problem, although if it is a poorly written document you're working on (my suspicion if Emma can't get a fix on it) I may not get a very useful answer. In any case, I'll call tomorrow morning. It's much cheaper for me to do it from Spain.
Joseph Tein (asker) Apr 2, 2011:
Emma ... Yes, I was hoping that Emma would clarify it for me instantly and elegantly ... that's why I wrote to her directly and asked her to look at this!

Jenni, the hospital is the Hospital de Viladecans ... my report even gives their telephone number: 93 659 01 11. Thank you for offering to phone them; I should have thought of it also, and please do if you're willing! Actually, I was planning to call a government agency in Mexico regarding another question I had this week, but somehow I didn't think to call a place in Catalunya.

Jenni Lukac (X) Apr 2, 2011:
Ah, Emma. I was hoping that you'd drop in and solve everything in brilliant snap of the fingers! Joseph - if you can give which hospital it is, I can try to call tomorrow.
Emma Goldsmith Apr 2, 2011:
As Charles points out, it's very hard to find anything to do with MIR that is not related to Médico Interno Residente.
How about Medicina Intensiva y Reanimación?
Or could it be a typo and we're all on the wrong tack?

Proposed translations

+1
4 hrs
Selected

Internal Medicine and Radiology

The acronym MIR is ubiquitous in the Spanish medical profession, but in a sense that doesn't seem to fit here. It normally stands for Médicos Internos Residentes, and for the crucial "oposición" that one needs to pass in order to join that "cuerpo". Every Spanish medical graduate I have known has been obsessed with the MIR at a certain stage in his/her career.

However, the context here clearly seems to imply that MIR refers to some department of the hospital. "Ingreso en" must surely mean being admitted into; we are told that "ingreso en MIR" was required as a result of a "descompensación de ICC". "MIR" must be a place where the patient received treatment.

That being so, "Medicina Interna" does seem reasonable; but what of "R"?

I found a report on a case that has nothing whatever to do with cardiology but may still offer a clue. It is on a "Varón de 36 años con disfagia y debilidad generalizada", by a series of authors from the "Servicio de Medicina Interna y Servicio de Radiología" of the Hospital Nuestra Señora del Prado in Talavera (Toledo). It includes: "Ingreso en MIR: Diselectrolitemia severa secundaria a inanición voluntaria (3/11/09-7/11/09)". I think it is quite possible that "MIR" here stands for "Medicina Interna y Radiología", the departments of the hospital from which the authors come.
http://www.fesemi.org/sociedades_autonomicas/somimaca/agenda...

I don't know whether Radiology would have been involved here; perhaps that department would have conducted some sort of examination of this heart patient. But it is quite possible, I think, that in the hospital in question, Internal Medicine and Radiology formed a single entity for admininstrative purpose; I have found cases in which they have been administratively combined. At any rate, I offer this suggestion for what it is worth. I have not found anything at all to suggest that MIR can denote a Cardiology Department in Spain.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 5 hrs (2011-04-02 10:26:09 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

I've had a rethink here, and I now suspect that the "Radiology" angle may be a red herring and that your original suggestion of just "Medicina Interna" is probably right. This is based on one Catalan hospital, which may not be typical, but still...

I find that a unit of the Bellvitge University Hospital in Llobregat (Barcelona) called Unidad de Diagnóstico Rápido has the email address [email protected].
http://www.fesemi.org/congresos/congresos_semi/previos/ponen...

The hospital's website confirms that this unit belongs to the department of Medicina Interna: "La Unidad de Diagnóstico Rápido (UDR) del Servicio de Medicina Interna del Hospital Universitario de Bellvitge se creó en 2005"
http://www.bellvitgehospital.cat/noticias/view.php?ID=424

The list of departments at this hospital shows that Medicina Interna and Radiodiagnòstic are separate, so in this case the R does not mean that. I think it's just there to distinguish Medicina Interna (MIR) from Medicina Intensiva (MIN? I haven't found the acronym for it). There is a list of a number of the acronyms for departments at Bellvitge on p. 4 of this document:
http://www.bellvitgehospital.cat/info_corporativa/ebellvitge...
They include MIR. I think it must be just "Medicina Interna" here, and quite probably in other Catalan hospitals too.
So my revised answer is: Internal Medicina.

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 5 hrs (2011-04-02 10:30:20 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Of course I mean Internal Medicine.
Peer comment(s):
agree Emma Goldsmith : A definite agree with your final suggestion "Internal Medicine", supported by your research and Jenni's phone call :)
1 day 3 hrs
Thanks very much, Emma :)
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Yes, after all this work and discussion, Internal Medicine makes perfect sense. Thanks for your help."
13 hrs

IMR (Internal Medicine and Rheumatology)

It's a bit of a long shot, but a Catalan nurse friend of mine says that such departments exist and it would be reasonable to send an ICC patient there. ICC can be caused by certain rheumatic conditions, and rheumatology is a subspecialty of Internan Medicine.

The first author of ref1 is "Profesor Titular de Medicina Interna y Reumatología".

According to ref2, "Several studies have shown that valvular regurgitation, and not myocarditis, is the cause of congestive heart failure in active rheumatic carditis"
Reference:

http://www.revistacolombianadereumatologia.org/Portals/0/Descargas/VASCULITIS%2014-3.pdf

http://www.springerlink.com/content/u388g805021r3051/

Note from asker:
Thank you also, pc, for your noble gestures and input.
Something went wrong...
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