Is It Really Necessary to Use Medical Terminologies?
Medical terminologies, in a simple way of explanation, is a type of language that medical professionals use to describe the body, what it does, and the treatments they prescribe.
These terminologies always seemed to be so “professional” and “academic” in the medical area, while you still might have questioned before, why do we even use these terms rather than the vocabularies we used during daily life? For example, why do we use “gastralgia” instead of “stomach ache”? Is it even necessary to have them exist? Before you have any concern or question about these terminologies, let’s first trace back the origin of these “fancy” and difficult terms.
The History of Medical Terminologies
Medical terminology dates all the way back to the ancient Greeks, specifically Hippocrates. The oldest medical writings that have been preserved are the Hippocratic writings from the 4th and 5th centuries BC, and therefore modern medical terminology somewhat depends on the tradition of using Greek and Latin words. There is no doubt that the Greek physician Galen’s writings, which have influenced medical terminology for almost 1,500 years, contributed in large part to the persistence of so many Greek words in the medical terminology today.
Still, the question is unsolved. Although medical terminology has a long story, why is it so popular among people working in the medical field to use these complicated words instead of words we say normally? While, the factor of tradition definitely took a huge sector of the reasons people are continuingly using these terms for a long time. However, other than the tradition, there are definitely other aspects to take in consideration.
Purpose & Benefits
For medical professionals, medical terminology serves as a standardised language. The advantage of creating this language includes:
- More efficient Documentation (the process of recording details & data)
- Easier communication (between medical professionals)
- Save time (don’t have to explain medical conditions in plain English)
- Can focus more on the treatment
Prevent any possible misunderstanding error (since the form of medical terminologies always contain roots, prefixes and suffixes) and therefore this allows easier comprehension)
The structure of medical terminology
Medical vocabularies commonly consist of three parts — a root, a prefix and a suffix. When the three are combined, it will express the meaning of the term.
An example would be hematology, which when comprehending, people normally separate the terms “hemato” and “logy”, then understand them in order one by one. The prefix “hemato” stands for the blood, and the meaning of “logy” is the study of, therefore, if we combine the meanings of these two, hematology would be the study of the blood.
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The structure and process would work the same when we’re looking at intravenous, where you also separate the small meanings and combine them together in the end.
Summary
As you could see, how medical terminologies function do make sense…although most of the vocabularies are difficult to remember. However, the existence of these medical terms are definitely necessary and practical in medical areas since it is easy to understand (although the precondition is to know the meaning of prefixes, roots and suffixes), time saving, and it allows easier communication both in paper work and verbally.
