Calling a patient “Pinhead” is completely out.
Straight out.
My MIL told me that until a prominent community member came out of a coma and reported what she had heard while in that state, the nurses and docs referred to their comatose patients by vegetable names: carrot, potato, etc. People were appalled and that practice stopped.
All but one of my hospital experiences have been happy times in the OB. The one time it wasn’t the nurses were all so kind and showed compassion, one even giving me a hug when I choked up. The use of “dear, honey” and so on can give a bit of comfort in sad times. It’s silly to forbid warmth and kindness to the patient while forbidding clinical terms (the hip, the knee) away from the patient.
How about “dawg” or the b word or that thing in room 234?