Medical Terminology - Discussion

Discussion

In forming or understanding a word root, one needs a basic comprehension of the term and the source language. The study of the origin of words is called etymology. For example, if a word was to be formed to indicate a condition of kidneys, there are two primary roots – one from Greek (νεφρός nephr(os)) and one from Latin (ren(es)). Renal failure would be a condition of kidneys, and nephritis is also a condition, or inflammation, of the kidneys. The suffix -itis means inflammation, and the entire word conveys the meaning inflammation of the kidney. To continue using these terms, other combinations will be presented for the purpose of examples: The term 'supra-renal is a combination of the prefix supra- (meaning "above"), and the word root for kidney, and the entire word means "situated above the kidneys". The word "nephrologist" combines the root word for kidney to the suffix -ologist with the resultant meaning of "one who studies the kidneys".

In medical terminology, the word root is not usually capable of standing alone as a complete word within a sentence. This is different than most word roots in modern standard English. The medical word root is taken from a different source language, so it will remain meaningless as a stand-alone term in an English sentence. A suffix or prefix must be added to make a usable medical term. For example the term for "concerning the heart" is "cardiacus", from the Greek kardía. If a person is suffering from a heart related illness, the statement, "The patient suffered a kardía event," would not make sense. However, with the addition of a suffix -ac, the statement would be modified to read, "The patient suffered a cardiac event" which is an acceptable use of medical terminology. The process is different in standard English because the word roots are capable of standing alone in a sentence. For example, the word eye is a word root in English that can be used without modification in a sentence.

An additional challenge to the student of medical terminology is that the formation of the plural of a word must be done using the rules of forming the proper plural form as used in the source language. This is more difficult than in English, where adding -s or -es is the rule. Greek and Latin each have differing rules to be applied when forming the plural form of the word root. Often such details can be found using a medical dictionary.

There is also another rule of medical terminology to be recognized by the student. When more than one body part is used in the formation of a medical term, the individual word roots are joined together by using the combining form using the letter -o- to indicate the joining together of various body parts. For example if there is an inflammation of the stomach and intestines, this would be written as gastro- and enter- plus -itis, gastroenteritis. In this example, the -o- signifies the joining together of two body parts.