Whether you're a trainee GP, a nursing student, a social care worker, or a doctor's receptionist, if you work in an environment where a basic comprehension of medical terms is required, it's important that you understand medical terminology.
In any of these roles, you may find yourself responding to an emergency situation, making a 999 call and having to administer life-saving care, such as CPR or an epipen injection. When you're dealing with emergency responders, it can help to have an understanding of medical terms.
But it's also likely to be important in your day-to-day duties, when measuring medication doses for care home residents or as a receptionist responding to triage information from more senior medical staff.
What is the purpose of medical terminology?
The purpose of medical terminology is to create a standardised language for medical professionals. This language helps medical staff communicate more efficiently and makes documentation easier. This enables staff to save time by ensuring they don’t have to explain complex medical condition in plain English and can focus on the treatment of patients.
Another purpose of Medical Terminology is that it can help to reduce errors from poor communication or poor documentation this ensures staff can quickly and accurately review a patient’s medical history and begin diagnosing and treating them whilst ensuring staff are aware of any allergies the patient may have.
Why is medical terminology important?
Medical terminology can look and sound complex, but it's important to be able to break words down and understand their roots, prefixes and suffixes to prevent any misunderstandings or errors.
Mistakes and misunderstandings can be life-threatening, that is the importance of medical terminology. According to research from the University of Manchester in 2018, 237 million medical errors are made across the NHS each year, contributing to between 1,700 and 22,303 deaths on an annual basis.
Of these errors, 71 per cent occur in primary care settings. Multiple factors can be behind these mistakes, including overstretched staff, but having a sound understanding of medical terms could be key to preventing them.
What's more, the financial cost of medical errors can come in anywhere between £60 and £6 million. Every healthcare worker therefore has a part to play in ensuring they understand medical terms so as not to cost the NHS much-needed cash.
Related resources
A woman and her doctor are indoors in a medical clinic. The woman is sitting and describing her symptoms to the doctor.
Medical terminology is important if you work in the healthcare field. It is the basis for all that you will do. It is used to describe symptoms, diagnoses, tests that need to be ordered and ran, and special medical equipment. The terminology is spoken and written in charts so you must learn to say, spell, and read medical terms.
Medical terminology is important for many reasons:
- It allows all healthcare workers to communicate in one language.
- You will use it every day when you work in the healthcare field.
- If you have to get your medical dictionary out every time you get asked to do something, you will be wasting valuable time. Nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals do not have time to waste, especially in an emergency situation.
- One small mistake can make a big difference. You could give the wrong medication or just give the right medication the wrong way. It can be the difference between ordering the right test or the wrong one! You need to understand medical terms.
- Common abbreviations are used in patient records. This helps doctors and nurses write quickly and efficiently in the records so that they can be onto the next patient. It also allows you to read and understand the records quickly.
If you want to do a great job in the health care field, you need to learn medical terminology and understand it! You do not want to have to reach for a medical dictionary every time you are told to do something. If you are unsure, it is better to check your dictionary than get something wrong. However, with a basic understanding of medical terminology, you will be able to communicate quickly and efficiently with other healthcare professionals.
If you are interested in learning more about medical terminology, enroll in the course entitled, “How to Learn Basic Medical Terminology (in 5 EASY Steps!) (and USE IT in EVERYDAY Living!)” offered by Avidity Medical Design Academy.
Watch sample lectures from the Medical Terminology course below:
Lecture 6 from “How to Learn Basic Medical Terminology (in 5 EASY Steps!) (and USE IT in EVERYDAY Living!)”
Lecture 7 from “How to Learn Basic Medical Terminology (in 5 EASY Steps!) (and USE IT in EVERYDAY Living!)”
Lecture 8 from “How to Learn Basic Medical Terminology (in 5 EASY Steps!) (and USE IT in EVERYDAY Living!)”
Click Here to Take the Full Medical Terminology Course for Only $29.99!
Contact us whether you need a full course or a refresher course on medical terminology!