Medical Mnemonics
Otorhinolaryngology (ENT) Mnemonics
Otorhinolaryngology moves between the clinic and the emergency airway, and its examinations reward crisp recall of anatomy, tuning-fork logic and red-flag syndromes. The mnemonics below capture the lists that recur most: the vestibular tests, the causes of epistaxis, the classification of chronic ear disease and the presentations that signal malignancy. They also cover the airway and foreign-body scenarios where a single anatomical fact guides management. Use each acronym as a retrieval hook for knowledge you already hold, rather than a shortcut around understanding. Every entry is tied to a core NMC competency and to decisions you will make on real patients.
MedNext Academy | 3 min read
Clinically reviewed by Dr Shameer Deen, MBBS, MS, MRCS
Otorhinolaryngology (ENT) Mnemonics
Otorhinolaryngology moves between the clinic and the emergency airway, and its examinations reward crisp recall of anatomy, tuning-fork logic and red-flag syndromes. The mnemonics below capture the lists that recur most: the vestibular tests, the causes of epistaxis, the classification of chronic ear disease and the presentations that signal malignancy. They also cover the airway and foreign-body scenarios where a single anatomical fact guides management. Use each acronym as a retrieval hook for knowledge you already hold, rather than a shortcut around understanding. Every entry is tied to a core NMC competency and to decisions you will make on real patients.
Otorhinolaryngology moves between the clinic and the emergency airway, and its examinations reward crisp recall of anatomy, tuning-fork logic and red-flag syndromes. The mnemonics below capture the lists that recur most: the vestibular tests, the causes of epistaxis, the classification of chronic ear disease and the presentations that signal malignancy. They also cover the airway and foreign-body scenarios where a single anatomical fact guides management. Use each acronym as a retrieval hook for knowledge you already hold, rather than a shortcut around understanding. Every entry is tied to a core NMC competency and to decisions you will make on real patients.
Mnemonics and expansions
- COWS: Cold Opposite, Warm Same. The direction of the fast phase of caloric nystagmus in an intact vestibular system.
- CENTOR: Cough absent, Exudate, Nodes (tender anterior cervical), Temperature (fever). Estimates the likelihood of group A streptococcal tonsillitis.
- Semon's law: Abductor fibres of the recurrent laryngeal nerve fail before adductor fibres. In a progressive nerve lesion the cord first sits near the midline, then moves to the cadaveric position.
- Waldeyer's ring (APTL): Adenoid, Tubal tonsils, Palatine tonsils, Lingual tonsil, from top to bottom. The lymphoid ring guarding the entrance to the aerodigestive tract.
- KLASS: Kiesselbach's plexus formed by the anterior ethmoidal, sphenopalatine, superior labial and greater palatine arteries. The vessels of Little's area, the commonest site of anterior epistaxis.
- Central Safe, Attic Attack: A central tympanic perforation is the safe tubotympanic type; an attic or marginal perforation is the unsafe type with cholesteatoma. Attic and marginal disease carries the risk of intracranial complications.
- To Zanzibar By Motor Car: Temporal, Zygomatic, Buccal, Marginal mandibular, Cervical. The five extratemporal branches of the facial nerve from top to bottom.
- Trotter's triad: Conductive deafness, trigeminal neuralgia, palatal immobility, all ipsilateral. Points to an advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma invading the skull base.
- JNA: adolescent boy, never biopsy: Juvenile nasopharyngeal angiofibroma: adolescent male, recurrent profuse unilateral epistaxis, nasopharyngeal mass. Biopsy risks massive bleeding; diagnose on contrast imaging and treat after embolisation.
- HINTS: Head-Impulse, Nystagmus, Test of Skew. A bedside battery that separates a peripheral vestibular cause from a central one in acute vertigo.
- Right is wider, shorter, straighter: The right main bronchus is wider, shorter and more vertical than the left. Explains why an aspirated foreign body usually lodges on the right.
- Coin in coronal: A swallowed coin in the oesophagus lies flat (coronal) on the AP film; a tracheal coin lies edge-on (sagittal). The orientation on plain film localises the coin.
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