Has anyone taken medical terminology??

msingiz · May 5, 2005

very easy class.take it and run with an A.

crb613, BSN, RN · May 5, 2005

Medical terminology was included in my Intro to Nursing class. I thought it was quite helpful.

Medical terminology saved my life as I have no background in the medical field. It was also required by my nsg program as a pre req. You can pretty much spell all the difficult words & know what they mean just by breaking them down.I guess all programs are the same & you have to be able to do both.

NurseFirst · May 6, 2005

I don't know. I don't want to knock anyone who took it but I think its a waste of time myself. Do I have a knack for languages? Maybe but I still find it something you can easily learn as you go through the pages of any text in anatomy or pharm or even nsg for that matter. I think the course sounds like an excuse to further drain the pockets of students even more and I would never take it if it was offered as an elective. The definition in Latin or whatever, is given right next to any words etc right in the text so for me its enough.
Now yes........I'm sure there's some who took it and found it helpful...I am NOT saying it may not be helpful for some people...... this is just MY opinion.
Z

Well, FWIW, I had already worked in a hospital as an ER admitting clerk for 4 1/2 years, had worked as a paramedic for about a year. I've had a 4.0 in all my pre-req classes...I still found med term a valuable class. While it was a pretty easy class for me, there were a number of terms I had not been exposed to (herniorrhaphy, for one) which the med term class exposed me to. The seminal textbook in medterm is Chabner's "Language of Medicine". I think it's in the 7th edition--and breaks down terms by "areas"--so, one chapter, for instance, is about radiology and has all sorts of terms (and abbreviations) r/t radiology. Even if you don't take the class, Chabner's a cool book.

NurseFirst

CrystalClear75, BSN, RN · May 6, 2005

I don't know. I don't want to knock anyone who took it but I think its a waste of time myself. Do I have a knack for languages? Maybe but I still find it something you can easily learn as you go through the pages of any text in anatomy or pharm or even nsg for that matter. I think the course sounds like an excuse to further drain the pockets of students even more and I would never take it if it was offered as an elective. The definition in Latin or whatever, is given right next to any words etc right in the text so for me its enough.
Now yes........I'm sure there's some who took it and found it helpful...I am NOT saying it may not be helpful for some people...... this is just MY opinion.
Z

I totally agree! WHY take a class when you can just buy the book and learn it yourself. I think having a teacher "repeat" EXACTLY what is right in the book would be a waste of time.

soontobe_RN · May 6, 2005

I want to thank you all for your imput. :thankya: I have decided to take the course. First and foremost, I love college and taking classes. Granted, I am not going to waste my money or time on something completely useless, however, from my experiance you are never too smart to learn something. :idea: I need to add that even though I am med. certified, so that I can assist with medications for the clients at my work, I have absolutly NO medical background, whatsoever. So, any course that can help me with my nursing career I am willing to take. Also, I want to continue my education after I get my ADN. After reading all of your posts, I am very excited about this course. So, today I went and payed for it. :yeah:

I have to agree that knowing how to break words down and pick out the meanings will deffently help in the future. At the college I attend, we have to take the NLN to even be considered for the nursing clinical program. Before I took it, I had already heard all the horror stories about the exam and especially the vocab part. So, to prep for the test, I studied prefixes, suffixes and root words. I honestly think that studying that stuff was what helped me pass the exam with a very high score. Of course, the NLN had absolutly nothing to do with nursing, which I have yet to understand. :confused:

Anyway, thank you again. I will let you know how it works out! :)

Jennifer

z's playa · May 6, 2005

I totally agree! WHY take a class when you can just buy the book and learn it yourself. I think having a teacher "repeat" EXACTLY what is right in the book would be a waste of time.

AND if you have a background in french or latin....totally useless waste of time since breaking down words from experience in past classes or general knowledge of language makes it a breeze with just the text in ANP class etc. The class doesn't even exist here since almost everyone around here is billingual. I do see how it can be helpful but I thank my lucky stars I dont need it.

Good luck to the OP ! Ace it :)

Z

begalli · May 6, 2005

Learning prefixes, suffixes and the like can also be helpful in learning and remembering certain things, because you can begin to understand how theings got named. My favorite is how, one day, I realized that I would never have to remember where the adrenal glands are or where renin is made. Why? Because the words tell me: look at the stem in both words, it is "ren"-- meaning kidney. So, "ad" "renal" glands are glands that are above the kidneys; and renin is a hormone made in the kidney. It also begins to help you learn that certain classes of chemicals can be recognized by their suffixes--the most immediate example is that words that end in "-ase" refer to enzymes. A cholinesterase is an enzyme that works on acetylchone. This will also help because similar patterns can be seen in different drug groups (e.g., cephalosporin antibiotics usually have "ceph" or "kef" at the beginning, or sometimes within, the name.)

NurseFirst's post is the perfect example of why nurses should have a good medical term class. I took 3 medical terminology courses over three college quarters (intro/part I/part II) about 15 years ago. I used the Language of Medicine book as well - I still have it! When the time came for me to go to nursing school several years later, it helped tremendously in understanding what I was reading and learning. I didn't have to pause to figure out how to pronounce the word in my head as I read and didn't have to pause to figure out exactly what a word meant. It helped even in pre-req's like A&P. The part I and part II courses were advanced and were NOT easy.

I can pretty much comprehend any medical term or word with ease. I also can spell which is important to me as presenting myself as a professional, especially in my charting.

I think having a course like this under your belt contributes to your greater understanding of what you are doing....contributes to the process of critical thinking.

I also took a medical law and ethics course at the same time way back then. Good stuff to have embedded in my brain.

I duuno. Medical jargon is a language all it's own. To really understand it, it must be learned like a second language, imo.

Good Luck OP. You'll LOVE it and later on, you'll be glad you did it!

SusanJean · May 6, 2005

I want to thank you all for your imput. :thankya: I have decided to take the course. First and foremost, I love college and taking classes. Granted, I am not going to waste my money or time on something completely useless, however, from my experiance you are never too smart to learn something. I need to add that even though I am med. certified, so that I can assist with medications for the clients at my work, I have absolutly NO medical background, whatsoever. So, any course that can help me with my nursing career I am willing to take. Also, I want to continue my education after I get my ADN. After reading all of your posts, I am very excited about this course. So, today I went and payed for it.
I have to agree that knowing how to break words down and pick out the meanings will deffently help in the future. At the college I attend, we have to take the NLN to even be considered for the nursing clinical program. Before I took it, I had already heard all the horror stories about the exam and especially the vocab part. So, to prep for the test, I studied prefixes, suffixes and root words. I honestly think that studying that stuff was what helped me pass the exam with a very high score. Of course, the NLN had absolutly nothing to do with nursing, which I have yet to understand.
Anyway, thank you again. I will let you know how it works out! :)
Jennifer

Jennifer,

You sound as though you are a very enthusiastic student! Good for you :balloons:.

Enjoy the learning and good luck with your studies...

SJ

Kabin · May 7, 2005

My program didn't require it. Other programs have it as a prereq but some teachers in that program try to drop the requirement as many students forget the detailed minutia when the semester is over.

Andi33 · May 7, 2005

I don't know. I don't want to knock anyone who took it but I think its a waste of time myself. Do I have a knack for languages? Maybe but I still find it something you can easily learn as you go through the pages of any text in anatomy or pharm or even nsg for that matter. I think the course sounds like an excuse to further drain the pockets of students even more and I would never take it if it was offered as an elective. The definition in Latin or whatever, is given right next to any words etc right in the text so for me its enough.
Now yes........I'm sure there's some who took it and found it helpful...I am NOT saying it may not be helpful for some people...... this is just MY opinion.
Z

Geez! That's one of the first classes I took! At my school, it's a prereq. It not only teaches you medical language, but all of the root words used to describe anything medical. I'm suprised that you don't have to take it. It made my A&P so much easier. I didn't consider it a waste of time at all. There's alot of memorization, but you'll learn tons! You should definately take it.

NurseFirst · May 7, 2005

My program didn't require it. Other programs have it as a prereq but some teachers in that program try to drop the requirement as many students forget the detailed minutia when the semester is over.

As opposed to the minutiae they forget in other classes?

That seems silly to me: learning comes about by repetition--and whether the student *remembers* the terms, being exposed to them will at least start to build up their mental database of terms they recognize. Maybe the teachers were expecting too much?

NurseFirst

z's playa · May 7, 2005

Geez! That's one of the first classes I took! At my school, it's a prereq. It not only teaches you medical language, but all of the root words used to describe anything medical. I'm suprised that you don't have to take it. It made my A&P so much easier. I didn't consider it a waste of time at all. There's alot of memorization, but you'll learn tons! You should definately take it.

I don't know what book you all use but our text includes all the little helpful hints so you learn as you go. Here where I come from...as I pointed out earlier, everyone is billingual and has Latin classes under their belt. It does make learning the terms sooo much easier since learning a second language requires the art of breaking down. Even Spanish.The medical terminology class is a moot point here. I'm sorry but I can't imagine a whole class dedicated to medical terminology. :twocents:

Z

PS...It wasn't myself at odds as to whether to take the class or not. It was the OP :)