Medical Transcription Terminology


Medical terminology is the language that is used by medical professionals. In order to be a successful medical transcriptionist, you will need to have a thorough understanding of this terminology. Fortunately, there are courses that you can take to help you herein.

Why It Is Important To Learn Medical Terminology

It is vital to have a good understanding of medical terminology in order to work in the medical transcription field. This is the only way in which you will be able to work with the medical professionals in this field. Fortunately, as part of your medical transcription training you will have plenty of time to learn the terminology that is required within this field.

Learning Medical Terminology

Learning the medical terminology that you will need to know as a medical transcriptionist can be a true mental workout. This is because there really is a lot of medical terminology that you need to learn. Those who don’t already have a good everyday vocabulary will find it even more challenging to learn these terms.

There are also a lot of prefixes and suffixes to learn. While you may have learned some of these in school, you will be surprised to find just how many you still need to learn. You will need to know these for whenever doctors dictate an obscure term that you haven’t heard of before.

Terms You Will Need To Know

As you can very well imagine, there are a lot of health related terms that you will need to be able to define. This includes:

  • Basic word roots, prefixes and suffixes.
  • Terminology that relates to the various systems throughout the human body (i.e. cardiovascular, digestive, lymphatic, musculoskeletal, nervous, respiratory, endocrine, urinary, the male and female reproductive systems)
  • Terms that are related to the kin and the 5 senses

Besides being able to define these things, you will also need to be able to:

  • Have a basic understanding of the human body’s make up.
  • Describe the human body whenever it comes to health and the many things that impact it (i.e. diseases, conditions, etc.).

Where To Find Help Online

Once you are finally working within the medical transcription field, there will still be times when you will need some quick help with medical terminology. Fortunately, there are some great online sites to help you with this. These include:

  • Medical-Dictionary.ro: This is a quick and reliable reference tool. The database on this website is continuously updated to include both classical and contemporary medical terminology.
  • Medic8.com/MedicalDictionary.htm: This is an online medical dictionary that contains numerous terms and definitions.
  • MedTerms.com: This website was created by doctors. It contains healthcare information about numerous conditions.

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