For that small minority of civilians out there that have wondered what a given doctor-critter was saying on TV, in-print, online, -anywhere; The Medical Library Association has put out a guide just for you.
It’s basically in the format of a small, pamphletized Dictionary with whole & partial terms, prefixes & suffixes, all under each starting-letter and a short, plain-english explanation underneath.
They have both General term guides and also those Specific to a few isolated conditions, like Heart Disease, Diabetes, etc.
The main dictionary is available as both a web page and a PDF, where the more specific guides seem only available as the latter.
So if you ever wanted to decipher all those Pig-Latin words in a diagnosis or pharmacological haiku, providing you could first unscramble the doctor’s terrible handwriting, then the MLA’s little secret-decoder-pamphlets are right up your alley!
Check out their stuff at the Links:
Photo Credits:
“Johannes Zeyss”, by Penn Provenance Project
Links:
• Source:
Deciphering Medspeak-Resources List
Webpage version
Deciphering Medspeak [PDF]
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