A Guide to Common Medical Terminology

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Medical terminology is a language used to accurately describe the human body and associate components, processes and process in a science-base manner. Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals use it in the medical field. Decoding medical terminology or Morphology is a very important process and once experience is gained, the process gets easier.

The process of creating medical terminology is a rule called linguistics and uses word roots, prefixes and suffixes. The word root would describe the part of the body referred to. The prefix would be added in front of the word giving information such as location of an organ, number of parts or time involved. The suffixes are attached at the end of the word giving information on the condition, disease process or procedure.

In understanding or forming a word root, one must first have a basic comprehension of the term and source of the language also called the study or origin words called “etymology.” For example, the root word for kidneys is “nephro” and the suffix “ologist” means “one who studies,” so Nephrologists are those who study the kidneys. The suffix “itis” means inflammation and so “nephritis” means inflammation of the kidneys.

Medical terminology is complex and learning how to break the words down into word roots, prefixes and suffixes will help one learn the language faster and more accurately.

Common Terminology

When we go to the doctors and they use terms like BP, NSAID, CBC and LFT’s, most of us have no idea what the doctor just said and it sounds like some kind of foreign language out of the stone-age. Many times, the patient will not ask what all that stuff means and just leave without ever understanding what their doctor said. It used to be that it was much harder to find out what all those terms mean without a medical dictionary. Now we can go to the World Wide Web and find out just about anything we are looking for. Websites such as WebMD.com, ScrubsandBeyond.com and U.S. News, can be used to look up medical terms such as BP (Blood Pressure), NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory) used for pain and swelling and usually over-the-counter such as Advil or Motrin, CBC (complete blood count) and LFT’s (liver function test) and so on.

Resources of Interest

It you are like many and know nothing about the medical field and all the terms used by medical professionals, there are resources out there to find out what they are talking about, so patients can have a better understanding of what is being said. Always ask the doctor what they are saying and what that means, if you forget to ask; you can purchase a medical dictionary from Amazon or a local book store or go online and lookup the medical terms on your own. There is no reason for patients to not understand what is going on with their own body and what a condition might mean to their overall health.