Understanding Medical Terminology
Medical is the study of diseases and treatment of health problems. It is a diverse field with many different specialties, from pathology to pharmacology, from radiology to urology. The information published in medical journals is meant to help doctors, scientists, and medical students understand the latest research on a disease or treatment. While these articles are written for a highly specialized audience, they can also be useful to anyone who is curious about a particular health condition or treatment.
The jargon used in medical studies and articles can seem overwhelming to those not familiar with it. It is important for students in allied healthcare fields to become comfortable with medical terminology and how to deconstruct unfamiliar terms. Deconstructing a medical term involves identifying its word parts: a prefix, the medical root word, and a suffix. The medical root word is the central meaning of a medical term; the prefix comes before it and typically indicates a division or part of that central meaning; the suffix comes after the medical root word and modifies the meaning as it relates to an object, process, or person.
Understanding the rules for constructing words in medicine can make medical terminology easier to decipher. While some medical words may seem unfamiliar, they follow the same construction rules as all language. For example, the prefix “a-” means without and is frequently combined with a word root to indicate a lack of something, such as “aortic dissection.”
Other words in the medical field are intuitive based on common sense or familiarity. For instance, most people know that cardiovascular exercise is a good thing to do for the heart; this word gets its roots from a Latin phrase that means “to cover with skin.” Other intuitive words include hematology (related to blood), rheumatology (related to arthritis and inflammation), and zoonotic disease (relative to infectious disease spread between animals and humans).
For students who are interested in a career in allied healthcare fields, learning medical terminology is a must. Understanding how to deconstruct medical terms and the underlying structure of these words can make it much easier to understand complex articles and study for medical tests and certifications. It is recommended that students review medical articles from a variety of sources, including medical journals, in order to get familiar with the types of information that are included in these publications. In addition, a number of medical journals create special departments to attract certain kinds of articles that require specific formats or subject matter. For example, the Journal of the American Medical Association has a department that publishes articles related to pharmaceuticals. Other journals may have a department that focuses on diagnostic imaging, like an MRI or CT scan.
Medical is the study of diseases and treatment of health problems. It is a diverse field with many different specialties, from pathology to pharmacology, from radiology to urology. The information published in medical journals is meant to help doctors, scientists, and medical students understand the latest research on a disease or treatment. While these articles are written for a highly specialized audience, they can also be useful to anyone who is curious about a particular health condition or treatment. The jargon used in medical studies and articles can seem overwhelming to those not familiar with it. It is important for students in allied healthcare fields to become comfortable with medical terminology and how to deconstruct unfamiliar terms. Deconstructing a medical term involves identifying its word parts: a prefix, the medical root word, and a suffix. The medical root word is the central meaning of a medical term; the prefix comes before it and typically indicates a division or part of that central meaning; the suffix comes after the medical root word and modifies the meaning as it relates to an object, process, or person. Understanding the rules for constructing words in medicine can make medical terminology easier to decipher. While some medical words may seem unfamiliar, they follow the same construction rules as all language. For example, the prefix “a-” means without and is frequently combined with a word root to indicate a lack of something, such as “aortic dissection.” Other words in the medical field are intuitive based on common sense or familiarity. For instance, most people know that cardiovascular exercise is a good thing to do for the heart; this word gets its roots from a Latin phrase that means “to cover with skin.” Other intuitive words include hematology (related to blood), rheumatology (related to arthritis and inflammation), and zoonotic disease (relative to infectious disease spread between animals and humans). For students who are interested in a career in allied healthcare fields, learning medical terminology is a must. Understanding how to deconstruct medical terms and the underlying structure of these words can make it much easier to understand complex articles and study for medical tests and certifications. It is recommended that students review medical articles from a variety of sources, including medical journals, in order to get familiar with the types of information that are included in these publications. In addition, a number of medical journals create special departments to attract certain kinds of articles that require specific formats or subject matter. For example, the Journal of the American Medical Association has a department that publishes articles related to pharmaceuticals. Other journals may have a department that focuses on diagnostic imaging, like an MRI or CT scan.