Recognizing Medical Terminology

I noticed while I was reading through the chapters in the textbook and later completing the reading companion activities I was able to select the right answers for the exercise because I was familiar with the suffixes in the words. I quickly recognized the meaning of the suffix phobia, “fear”, mania, “abnormal preoccupation or obsession” and derma, “skin”. Recognizing the suffix from past words allowed me to make a good confident educated guess. The lesson provided needed clarification on the difference between a suffix and a prefix. The suffix is the word part added to end of the word and it completes a medical term but the prefix is the word part found at the beginning of a medical term. To decode a medical term, you start with the suffix because it identifies the problem for the patient the disease, disorder or condition, as in why the patient is …show more content…
After determining the problem, you will later find the location its size or presence and then its combining form. If you were unable to remember these set rules you wouldn’t be able to understand any medical terminology presented to you. It is a must that you will be able to interpret the different parts of the medical terminology because it is imperative that you do so correctly. The many components of the word will help you successfully identify its meaning if you the translator of the medical terminology initially understood its components. But the process of translating the medical terminology doesn’t end here. If the medical terminology is later misrepresented because of a spelling error it can lead to confusion or possible chaos for a