Volume 184 - Issue 1
Email “icon-ography” for health professionals
Author: Biji T Kurien
Med J Aust 2006; 184 (1): 48. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2006.tb00108.x
Published online: 2 January 2006
Published online: 2 January 2006
Biji T Kurien
Senior Research Scientist, Arthritis and Immunology, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, 825 NE 13th Street, Oklahoma City, OK 73104, USA. biji-kurienATomrf.ouhsc.edu
To the Editor: The smiley icon “ :) ” has been widely used to convey amusement, mirth or jollity in casual email communications. However, there seems to be a lack of simple icons for use by health professionals as email shorthand in different scenarios. I therefore submit the symbols shown in the Box for use by doctors and others involved in health care. All are derived by typing a combination of characters of various font sizes and other features (colour, superscript, subscript, italics, and bold), and all are in Times New Roman font except when stated otherwise.
Note that it would be highly inadvisable to use a spell check feature in conjunction with these icons.1
Email icons (“emoticons”) for the health profession
Symbol |
Meaning |
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Bearded doctor with stethoscope around neck |
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Curly-haired (red-haired) doctor/scientist with big moustache |
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Nurse (face) [Characters: { in red, ital, f12; space; colon in black, bold, ital, Sp, f12; space; ” in red, bold, f8;) in red, bold, ital, f8.] |
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Nurse (whole body) [Characters: { in red, ital, f12; space; colon in black, bold, ital, Sp, f12; space; ” in red, bold, f8;) in red, bold, ital, f8; = in yellow, f8; { in red bold f12; 3 in red f9; two colons in red, bold, f10; \ in red, ital, f8; = in green, f28; \ in green, bold, Sb, f8; = in dark red, Sb, f16; / in red, bold, Sb, f8.] |
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Bearded doctor/scientist awestruck on having article accepted in MJA |
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Bearded doctor/scientist awestruck on learning of receipt of Nobel Prize |
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Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation [Characters for lips: “ in Sb, f11.] |
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Identical twins |
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Whole body x-ray [Characters: 8 in f9; space; O in f10; hyphen in f12; { in f12; | in f12; | in f11; | in f10; | in f8; () in f8; five colons in f12; full stop in f12; / in Sp, f12; / in f12. All in bold; convert font to white and highlight characters in black.] |
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Acromegaly and gigantism (same as for twins, but use Courier New) |
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Smoking [Characters for cigarette: [ and ] in bold, ital, f10; ~ in f24.] |
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Obesity |
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Healthy laboratory mice (Courier font) |
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Dead laboratory mice |
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Concerned doctors/scientists discussing experimental failure |
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ital = italics. Sp = superscript. Sb = subscript. f = font. |
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