Doctor Speak

Written by Bakersfield Magazine

Think about it. You fill out forms, flash your ID, adopt a new style of dress while there, and the exchange rate for your money changes. It also doesn’t help that your doctor sometimes speaks another language.

That’s really what it sounds like when they start using medical terminology, right? Well, on some level, they are speaking different languages: Greek and Latin, to be exact. Many of the words used in the medical field today are the same words used thousands of years ago by the folks who were responsible for most of the modern world. Sure, they were stuffy old guys in robes, but they could name the heck out of your internal organs.

Believe it or not, the roots of these words are still a part of the vocabulary you use on a daily basis. Still, unless you’re a linguist or teach elementary school grammar, you’ve probably forgotten a lot of the components that make up any of these words—even if you use them every day.

Take this word for example: Autophobia. Just like your teachers asked you to do in school, take a look at the two parts of the word to help figure out the definition.

“Auto” and “phobia.”

“Auto,” as we all know, is Greek for “self.” And if you didn’t know that, you do now! When you give someone your autograph, you’re giving them your signature. When we drive an automobile, we’re in a machine that (usually) runs on its own...you don’t have to go in there and move the belts and turn the engine while you drive the vehicle. An automatic response is something you do without thinking about why you are.

“Phobia” (from the Greek word “phobos”) means “fear.” Well, that’s a fairly easy one.

So autophobia is a condition where a person has a fear of oneself, more commonly a fear of being alone or lonely.

Makes sense, right? Although, heaven help you if you like the thought of being lonely.

This is a technique you can apply to all medical terms once you know some of the root words, suffixes, and prefixes.

You can do the same with the word arthritis (arthr•itis). Most people understand that a person with arthritis has swelling and stiffness of their joints. That’s exactly what the name “arthritis” implies—it’s not just a fancy name that doctors use. “Arthro” is Ancient Greek for “joint” and “itis” means “inflammation.” Which, when put together, means joint swelling. Most medical terms are put together in just this fashion. The name can tell you what organ or body part is being affected and the suffix and prefix modify what’s happening to that body part.

Of course, there’s a difference in commonplace words like arthritis; contact dermatitis (dermat•itis) which is an inflammation of the skin; and conjunctivitis (conjunctiv•itis) which is an inflammation of the conjunctiva, or pink eye; and terms like esophagogastroduodenoscopy (esophago•gastro•duodeno•scopy).

Sure it seems like nonsensical gibberish, but really take a look at the elements of the word. “Esophago” kinda sounds like esophagus, and you know what that is; “gastro” pertains to your stomach— it’s the reason people who love to study food are studying gastronomy; and “duodeno,” refers to your duodenum—a first part of your small intestine. Put that all together with “scopy,” and, if you’ve ever “scoped” anything out you can guess what that suffix means, you know that esophagogastroduodenoscopy is a procedure that involves using a thin flexible camera on a tube (the scope) to examine the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum. It doesn’t sound like a scary word when you break it down, does it?

It can also be fun to use the medical term for a lot of the common disorders and conditions instead of the layperson’s term. If someone is suffering from bad breath—tell them they’ve got halitosis (halit•osis). If you hear someone sniffling and sneezing, they’ve got a case of rhinitis (rhin•itis).

Ecchymosis (ecchym•osis) sounds like a bad word, right? The definition is a skin discoloration caused by the escape of blood into the tissues from ruptured blood vessels. Yeah, you know it as a bruise. If you ask us which one we’re going to be using around the office, we’ll answer ecchymosis. It just sounds cooler!

Now, that’s not to say that sometimes the common name for a condition isn’t just easier to use (and pronounce!) than its Greek- or Latin-based counterpart. Take “otitis” (ot•itis) for example. It’s the medical term for an ear infection. Now, how many of us want to walk up to the pharmacists’ counter at our local drug store and request medication for our son’s otitis? But when you pick up a box of Pepcid® AC®, know that the medication name is rooted in the Greek word for digestion— “pepsia.”

Still, medical terminology is good for trivia nights. Just don’t play with someone who’s studied Latin and ask them to define onychocryptosis (onycho•crypt•osis). They’ll probably have no trouble telling you that’s the medical term for an ingrown toenail. We imagine they’d tell you “onycho” means “nail,” “crypt,” is “hidden or buried,” and “-osis” is a suffix that means “condition.” Put those words together and you’ve got an ingrown toenail...and a seemingly unpronounceable word.

Quite hilariously, though, someone spoofed the concept of medical terminology by creating a word which does, in fact, reference a condition, but a term that is factitious nonetheless. They coined the word

pneumono•ultra•microscopic•silico•volcano•coni•osis, which is not in the dictionary. The meaning of the word is a lung condition caused by the inhalation of microscopic volcanic silica particles.

The longest word in Gould’s Medical Dictionary is hepat•ico•-chol•angio•chole•cyst•entero•stomies. What, pray tell, is that? It’s a surgical creation of a connection between the gall bladder and a hepatic duct and between the intestine and the gall bladder. And for some reason, the time it takes to say the definition of the word still seems shorter than it does to say the medical term...unless you’re the guy who used to voice the Micro Machine® commercials in the ‘80s.

Once you’ve got a handle on the major medical root words, a few of the prefixes, and some suffixes, there’s no reason why you can’t decipher what your doctor is saying. And, thankfully, they won’t be talking as fast as John Mischitta, Jr., even if they are using needlessly long words to describe your stuffy nose.

Common Root Words

angi(o) = blood vessel

arthr(o) = joint

nephr(o) = kidney

hepat(o) = liver

cardi(o) = heart

encephal(o) = brain

gastr(o) = stomach

hema, hem(o) = blood

ost(e), oste(o) = bone

pneum(o) = lungs

Common Prefixes

a-, an = an absence of

hyper = extreme

hyp(o) = below normal

tachy = fast, irregularly fast

brady = slow

Common Suffixes

-i-asis = condition

-ism = condition, disease

-osis = condition

-itis = inflammation

-lepsis, -lepsy = attack, seizure

-plasty = surgical repair,

reconstruction

-rrhea = flowing, discharge

-stomy = creation of an opening

Article appeared in our 27-5 Issue - December 2010