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In This Chapter

▶ Getting an understanding of what medical terminology is

▶ Finding out how medical terms are used in the real world

▶ Tracking the evolution of terminology

▶ Exploring Greek and Latin roots

Repeat after us: Context is a good thing. You love context. Mmmmm, context. It is a good idea to get to know something about your subject matter before you dive head-first into studying it. This is particularly true with medical terminology because so much of the theory and history behind this topic shows up in the actual words and terms you will use every day.

Defining Medical Terminology

First, let’s ponder what medical terminology is. It’s a whole lot more than just medical words and phrases. Each word and each term is organic, meaning you can trace each part of the word back to a specific meaning. Cobbled together, these parts make up the meaning of the word. Medical terminology is made up of terms that describe human anatomy and physiology (body organs, systems, and their functions), body locations, diseases, diagnostic imaging and laboratory testing, together with clinical procedures, surgeries, and diagnoses.

A medical term usually describes in one word a disease or condition that, under normal circumstances, would take several words to describe.

Sprechen Sie terminology?

Medical terminology is like a foreign language to most people. In fact, it operates exactly like a foreign language if you have never encountered it before. Just as with practicing German (or any language, for that matter), you get the meaning of medical terms by breaking down each word into different parts:

✔ Prefix: Appears at the beginning of a word and tells the how, why, where, when, how much, how many, position, direction, time, or status.

✔ Root word: Specifies the body part to which the term refers.

✔ Suffix: Appears at the end of a word and indicates a procedure, condition, or disease.

Those are the bare bones, basic parts of every medical term. Each prefix, root, and suffix has its own meaning, so it’s your job to remember them and put the three meanings together into one greater word meaning. It can be tricky, though, so proceed carefully until you are confident of individual part meanings.

As with languages, things aren’t always what they seem. For example, if we use tonsillitis and appendectomy, we see that the suffix -itis always means ”inflammation,” no matter what root word precedes it. Similarly, the suffix -ectomy always means “surgical removal of.” So when switching suffixes, appendicitis means “inflammation of the appendix,” and tonsillectomy means “surgical removal of the tonsils.”

For example, consider two terms commonly known to most people. Tonsillitis is a one-word medical term to describe “inflammation of the tonsils,” and appendectomy is a one-word medical term to describe “surgical removal of the appendix.” It’s much easier to use one word than a long, drawn-out phrase to describe these conditions, don’t you think?

Medical Terminology in the Real World

The need or desire to learn medical terminology is not limited to the healthcare professionals. For example, a firefighter has to relay information to paramedics, such as the condition of a burn victim being placed in an ambulance. A police officer must complete a written report after delivering a baby in the back seat of a car. Or closer to home, think about trying to understand when a doctor tells you that your child needs surgery, or why an aging parent needs to be placed in a long-term care facility. Medical terminology allows you to convey the greatest quantity of information, with the least confusion and most precision, to anyone in the world. For example, saying someone has a badly broken wrist doesn’t convey as much as saying someone has a Salter-Harris II fracture of the right distal radius with moderate lateral displacement and 28 degrees of anterior angulation. Now who’s the coolest kid in the clinic?

In theory and practice

You don’t need prior knowledge of Greek and Latin or anatomy and physiology to build a medical vocabulary. But you do need to master the fundamentals, or the ABCs, so to speak, to be comfortable and confident with medical terminology.

You accomplish this by breaking down each word and identifying its parts (prefix, suffix, and root). A basic knowledge of the human anatomy helps, but more important is to know how each body system works independently and together with other systems. Knowing that helps the puzzle pieces fit into place more easily.

Mastering medical terms is much easier than you think. It is certainly easier than acquiring a whole new language from scratch. New terms become easier once you know the reasoning behind most medical terms. Many terms are made up of interchangeable parts, used over and over again, in different combinations. Once you understand this, you will be well on your way to translating even the toughest medical terms – including terms you have never heard or seen before.

Writing it down

One thing that gives some people pause with medical terminology is spelling the words correctly. Again, defer to the rule of breaking down the word into parts. If you can spell each small prefix, root, or suffix and put them all together, then you can spell medical terms with ease.

One of the best ways to practice the spelling is, of course, to write it down.

Whether you are a list maker or prefer to draw maps, there is a way for you to incorporate writing terms as spelling and word-recognition practice. Some useful ideas for writing and recalling terms are

✔ Make lists of similar prefixes, roots, and suffixes based on what body system they are associated with.

✔ Make lists of prefixes, suffixes, and roots based on some other memorable moniker, such as sound similarity or similar meaning.

✔ Draw simple maps of each system and label body part terms.

✔ Use your body system map to identify diseases affecting each specific part. You can also use this technique to identify locations of specific procedures.

Building a medical vocabulary involves breaking down a word by identifying its prefix, suffix, and root word. The root word is the foundation or basic meaning of the word. It can appear with a prefix and suffix or between a prefix and suffix, as prefixes and suffixes never stand alone. They must be attached to a root word.

In this book we outline roots, suffixes, and prefixes and include the anatomy for each body system to help you to understand how everything fits together. When in doubt, look at the table of contents and check a specific body system’s chapter.

Changes in Medical Terminology

Medical language is an entity unto itself and followed a historical development. Common medical vocabulary used today includes terms built from Greek and Latin word parts, some of which were used by Hippocrates and Aristotle more than 2,000 years ago.

One type of medical term is the eponym, a term named after someone. An example would be Parkinson’s disease, named after the English physician Dr. James Parkinson.

With the great advancements in medicine throughout the 20th century, medical language changed with the times and continues to do so today. Some words are discarded or considered obsolete, whereas others are changed, and new words are continually added.

Building on guidance from the Greek and Latin origins, medical terms began to be professionalized in the mid-1800s. Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary was first published in 1890 as the American Illustrated Medical Dictionary, consisting of 770 pages, over 50 years after the first edition of Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language. Dr. William Alexander Dorland was the editor, and when he died in 1956 the dictionaries were renamed to include his name, thus they are known today as Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary. Electronic medical publishing took off during the 1980s thanks to advancements in database publishing and electronic storage. In the mid-1990s, medical dictionaries – most notably from Dorland’s, Stedman’s, and Taber’s – became available in electronic form with many various editions and publications available on disk, CD-ROM, and via Internet downloading. Check out Chapter 24 for a list of great resources.

It’s Greek and Latin to Me

You can thank the two founding fathers of medical terminology for getting the ball rolling: Hippocrates and Aristotle. Hippocrates, considered the father of medicine, was a student, teacher, and great physician. Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and a physical scientist. He stressed observation and induction. His major studies were of comparative anatomy and physiology.

The Hippocratic Oath – an oath of professional behavior sworn by physicians beginning a medical career – is attributed to Hippocrates.

The Greeks were the founders of modern medicine, but Latin is the basic source of medical terms. With origins in ancient Rome and thanks to good, old-fashioned conquest, Latin quickly made its way through the world, solidifying its rep as the language of choice for medicine and science. Approximately 75 percent of all medical terms are based on Latin or Greek terms, even though modern-day changes are made to make the terms more comprehensive.

Look no further than the study of etymology to help you crack the code of medical terms. Etymology indicates the origin and historical development of a term. Some examples of etymology, or word history, include

✔ Words with Latin origins: Femur, for example, is a Latin term referring to a bone in the leg.

✔ Words with Greek origins: Hemorrhage, for example, is a word with Greek origin indicating a rapid, uncontrollable loss of blood.

✔ Eponyms: Words named after people, such as Parkinson’s disease.

✔ Acronyms: These are modern language terms that stand for longer phrases such as laser, which stands for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.”

Etymologies were listed in early medical dictionaries, assuming the reader had studied languages and could read Greek or Latin. But gradually the Greek alphabet was cast aside when it was later recognized that few, aside from specialists, were actually studying ancient Greek.

Modernizing Medicine

With the advent of the medical dictionary, terminology came to the masses with full force. Today, medical terminology has evolved into modern applications from basic anatomy to include alternative, holistic, naturopathic, and complementary medicine. Other modern applications of medical terminology include (but are certainly not limited to):

✔ CAT scans

✔ DNA advancement

✔ Hundreds of new drugs on the market

✔ Investigative and diagnostic medicine

✔ Joint replacements and other surgical procedures

✔ Laparoscopic surgeries

✔ MRIs

✔ Organ transplants

✔ Stem-cell research

Today medical terminology is used and needed in any occupation that is remotely related to medicine and the normal functioning of the body. Here are a few careers involving the need for medical terminology:

✔ Athletic therapy

✔ Audiology

✔ Biomedical engineer

✔ Cytotechnology

✔ Dentistry and dental hygiene

✔ Emergency medical services

✔ Health records and health information technicians

✔ Massage therapy

✔ Medical statistics

✔ Medical transcription

✔ Nursing Home administrator

✔ Nutrition

✔ Occupational therapy

✔ Personal training

✔ Pharmacy

✔ Physical therapy

✔ Radiology technicians

✔ Speech language

✔ Veterinary medicine

All these applications exist in addition to the obvious groups of healthcare professionals who use terminology in their day-to-day activities, including associates, the medical secretary in a doctor’s office, the insurance claims adjuster, even the compensation board adjudicator.