Medical Terminology For Dummies. Beverley Henderson

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.

      Chapter 3

      Introducing the Big Three: Prefixes, Roots, and Suffixes

       In This Chapter

      ▶ Finding your roots

      ▶ Getting to know prefixes

      ▶ Taking a brief look at suffixes

      Introducing the starting lineup for your medical terminology team! Whether you realize it or not, most words are made up of individual parts that contribute their own meaning. The big three – roots, prefixes, and suffixes – of medical terms all work together to clue you in to what that word means. Often, they tell you where it comes from, too.

      Starting at center, you have the root. The root is the main part