Is taking a Medical Terminonology class beneficial?

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I went in for my classes yesterday, and my councilor strongly recommended that I take "Medical Terminology" since I didn't have any type of medical education since Health class in high school. I decided to go ahead and take it, but now in retrospect I'm not a 100% sure if that was the best idea since it is just an elective. Has anyone else here taken the class?

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I would take it... my school doest have a Medical terminology class or i will take it i just bought books and read them and there are soooo many words that a nurse will need to know. So i think that it will help when in the nursing program.

Hope tis helped.

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Specializes in Telemetry.

I took medical terminology while waiting to be accepted into a program. I think it will help. I have first semester students shadow me at work and I hear them all the time say things like "what's dysphagia" or "what's diaphoretic". I think anything you can learn ahead of time will be beneficial so that you can focus on all the other new info. Good luck!

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Specializes in Critical Care.

What about for your prereqs? Doesn't it help to take Medical Terminology before taking Anatomy and Physiology?

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I haven't taken and pre-req classes yet. I plan to this summer, or next year. I'm only taking 2 classes at a time because I'm working 35-40 hours a week.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Clinical Documentation Specialist.

Medical Terminology isn't a pre-req to get into my BSN program and I don't have time to take one that's not. But, to try and get a little ahead, I bought Mosby's Flash Cards last year. I put them into the Study Stack website so I can practice them either online or on my iphone whenever I have a free moment. I should have a rudimentary medical vocabulary by the time I get into NS next summer. BTW - you can use other peoples' lists... so you wouldn't even need to buy the flash cards yourself.

Good Luck with the class!

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I would highly recommend taking the med terminology course. If you can get a handle on the Greek and Latin roots, prefixes and suffixes, you will give yourself a good foundation for classes like A&P, chem, biology and micro. You will be less intimidated by a word like, "Myeloencephalitis"because you will know that--

"myelo" refers to the spinal cord;

"encephal-" comes from the Greek "enkephalon", brain;

and "-itis" means inflammation = spinal cord and brain inflammation.

Before you are given any more information than the name of this condition, you will be able to tease out the meaning (an inflammation of the brain and spinal cord) from what you learned in your terminology class.

It's kind of like taking a conversational Italian class before going to Rome. You'll still have a lot to learn, but you'll have what you need to get around and take care of yourself.

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