"curbside", v.t.; "consult", n.

[Mark Mandel]

In the hospital, I heard a sentence with "... curbside a specialist ...". It
means, I was told, to "ask an informal question, not making an official
consult" (w/ initial stress).


9 googits for "curbside him", most of them gibberish as shown by the
snippets. I clicked on one of them and the site tried to force me to
download alleged "antivirus software". (You can bet I killed the browser
session.) But this one looks genuine:

westhoff.net/2002/01/mississippi-mar.php
I took to the opportunity to (literally) curbside him and he assured me that
my strategy to resume my normal pace was a good one as my normal stride was
...


17 googits  for "curbside them". Again, much gibberish, but several real
ones in hospital contexts, including:

http://www.pcc.com/lists/pedtalk.archive/0204/00006.html
The physicians who work at our hospital enjoy teaching, they encourage us to
ask questions and curbside them (even when they know they will not be
consulted formally), and they always stop to take advantage of "the teaching
moment."

http://www.scutwork.com/cgi-bin/links/review.cgi?ID=2263&d=1
I have no hesitation to ask any faculty a question at any time. If I need a
subspecialists opinion I can curbside them by paging them or I can refer
them without hesitation.

[plus others from www.scutwork.com]


UrbanDictionary, which I tried first, has the verb but in a very different
sense:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=curbside
Ordering someone to place their mouth on a curb (usually at gun point) and
then stomping on the center of their head, cracking their jaw and sometimes
killing them.

... although this could also lead to a hospital setting.

--
Mark Mandel

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