Vocabulary geekery

[mellicious]

columbina  is confused about the class business, and if he is, I figure somebody else is too, so let me clarify. I'm now taking two, count 'em, two classes:
1. Medical Terminology - I'm about halfway through this one.
2. Anatomy - I'm just starting this one.

They're both online, and there's a lot of overlap between the two, which is good - not only because it makes it easier, but because there's a heck of a lot of new material (to me, anyway) contained therein, so by the time I go over a lot of it twice I'm more likely to actually remember it.

Col and I also spent a bunch of WoW time, between fights, geeking out over vocabulary. Here's one bit I've been having trouble with that I was telling him about, and I'll repeat it all again because the more times I repeat it the more likely I am to remember it, and there are still a couple of these that I tend to forget. Some you'll know, some you probably won't unless you have a background in this stuff.

Suffixes for surgery:
-centesis - puncture, tap (like amniocentesis)
-desis - binding, fusion
-ectomy - excision, surgical removal
-pexy - surgical fixation
-plasty - reconstruction, plastic repair
-rhaphy - surgical repair, suture
-stomy - surgical creation of an opening (colostomy is probably the most common)
-tome - instrument for cutting (incising)
-tomy - incision
-tripsy - crushing (as in a gallstone; lithotripsy is a general term for crushing of a stone)

(Maybe later I'll tell you about the intestines. Right now I'm not in the mood for the ick factor of that one.)

Comments

[mmancuso.livejournal.com]

Cool. I have linguapexy.

[anjea.livejournal.com]

Maybe it would help to come up with a common, well-known procedure to help remember them? Like you did with amniocentesis. Here are some others:

appendECTOMY - appendix removal
rhinoplasty - nose job
tracheoSTOMY - creating of an artificial airway ) (and the stoma is the hole itself once the trach is removed)
cystoTOMY - surgery that cuts into the bladder to remove things, like stones

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

You got a good example for "pexy" or "desis" - or "rhaphy"? - those less common ones are the ones I'm really having trouble with, although I've been having a bit of trouble with the difference between stomy, tomy and ectomy at various times, also!

[anjea.livejournal.com]

mammopexy - resuspending saggy boobs :D

arteriorrhaphy - suture of an artery
perineorrhaphy - suture of the perineum (done after an episiotomy)

pleurodesis - binding the lung tissue to eliminate pleural space in the prevention of recurrence of penumothorax


Hmmm...ecto (removal of) like ectoplasm in Ghostbusters? Get rid of the green stuff? :D

Stomy - surgical creation of an opening (episiotomy to facilitate childbirth)

Tomy - cutting into; lobotomy (cutting the nerves of the brain for the prevention of seizures, e.g.)

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's a piece of information I was wondering about - just why you would want to fuse the pleura. Thanks for the other ones, too! (You may be the only person on my FL that knows anything about this stuff!)

[anjea.livejournal.com]

Possibly! Don't know most of the folks on your flist, though. :D There are advantages to working in an acute care hospital!

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

The bulk of my friendslist is people from the Usual Suspects board, because I've been posting there for years. They tend to lean a bit toward the geeky!