.svg)
Author / Editor
Annual Student Impact
3,940 students | 3,184 high school students | $725,793 student savings
Medical Terminology is a foundational textbook designed to help students master the language of healthcare. It focuses on the components of medical terms, including prefixes, suffixes, and word roots, and introduces diagnostic, therapeutic, surgical, and symptomatic terminology related to all body systems. This resource provides a clear and systematic approach to understanding and using medical terminology in real-world healthcare settings. With practical examples and exercises, students will build the vocabulary and confidence needed to communicate effectively in clinical environments. Ideal for aspiring healthcare professionals, this textbook is an essential tool for anyone preparing for a career in medicine, nursing, or allied health fields.
Course Competency 1: Apply the rules of medical language
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the basic rules for analyzing and building medical terms
- Identify the role of the three types of word components
- Define the meaning of word components
- Divide words into their component parts
- Build words from the component parts
- Pronounce medical terms
- Spell medical terms
- Apply rules to create plural and singular word formations
- Identify common medical abbreviations
- Abbreviate common medical terms
- Distinguish between nouns and adjectives
Course Competency 2: Apply medical terms related to the body as a whole
Learning Objectives:
- Use the anatomic reference system to identify the anatomic position of the body
- Use the anatomic reference system to identify the body planes
- Use the anatomic reference system to identify the body cavities
- Use the anatomic reference system to identify the directional terms
- Use the anatomic reference system to identify the divisions of the body
- Describe the structural organization of the body
- Apply the rules of medical language
- Identify meanings of key word components
Course Competency 3: Interpret medical terms related to the lymphatic and immune systems
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the lymph and immune systems
- Identify meanings of key word components of the lymph and immune systems
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the lymph and immune systems
- Use terms related to the lymph and immune systems
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the lymph and immune systems
Course Competency 4: Interpret medical terms related to the integumentary system
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the integumentary system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the integumentary system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the integumentary system
- Use terms related to the integumentary system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the integumentary system
Course Competency 5: Interpret medical terms related to the female reproductive system
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the female reproductive system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the female reproductive system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the female reproductive system
- Use terms related to the female reproductive system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the female reproductive system
Course Competency 6: Interpret medical terms related to the male reproductive system
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the male reproductive system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the male reproductive system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the male reproductive system
- Use terms related to the male reproductive system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the male reproductive system
Course Competency 7: Interpret terms related to the blood
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the blood
- Identify meanings of key word components of the blood
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the blood
- Use terms related to the blood
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the blood
Course Competency 8: Interpret terms related to the visual and auditory sensory systems
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the sensory system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the sensory system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the sensory system
- Use terms related to the sensory system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the sensory system
Course Competency 9: Interpret terms related to the musculoskeletal system
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the musculoskeletal system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the musculoskeletal system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the musculoskeletal system
- Use terms related to the musculoskeletal system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the musculoskeletal system
Course Competency 10: Interpret terms related to the respiratory system
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the respiratory system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the respiratory system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the respiratory system
- Use terms related to the respiratory system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the respiratory system
Course Competency 11: Interpret terms related to the digestive system
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the digestive system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the digestive system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the digestive system
- Use terms related to the digestive system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the digestive system
Course Competency 12: Interpret terms related to the nervous system
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the nervous system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the nervous system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the nervous system
- Use terms related to the nervous system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the nervous system
Course Competency 13: Interpret terms related to the endocrine system
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the endocrine system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the endocrine system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the endocrine system
- Use terms related to the endocrine system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the endocrine system
Course Competency 14: Interpret terms related to the urinary system
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the urinary system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the urinary system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the urinary system
- Use terms related to the urinary system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the urinary system
Course Competency 15: Interpret terms related to the cardiovascular system
Learning Objectives:
- Apply the rules of medical language to build, analyze, spell, pronounce, abbreviate, and define terms as they relate to the cardiovascular system
- Identify meanings of key word components of the cardiovascular system
- Categorize diagnostic, therapeutic, procedural or anatomic terms related to the cardiovascular system
- Use terms related to the cardiovascular system
- Use terms related to the diseases and disorders of the cardiovascular system
This textbook is part of the WisTech Open collection and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
You are free to:
– Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
– Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially
Under the following terms:
– Attribution — You must give appropriate credit to WisTech Open, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests WisTech Open endorses you or your use.
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You are free to:
– Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
– Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially
Under the following terms:
– Attribution — You must give appropriate credit to WisTech Open, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests WisTech Open endorses you or your use.
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
First edition funded by WiLS Ideas to Action Fund Second edition funded by U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration grant and State of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Technical College System funding for Open Educational Resources
WisTech Open, including the Open RN and Bright Beginnings series, does not provide ancillary or instructor materials. You can instead create free, customized supplementary resources—slides, quizzes, worksheets, study guides, and more - on demand, through our generative AI platform, WisTech Fusion: https://www.wistechopen.org/wistech-fusion. Fusion only uses content from WisTech Open, Open RN, and Bright Beginnings resources.
To help keep print textbook costs low for our students, please consider using the electronic version, or purchasing a personal print copy, rather than requesting a publisher/desktop version from our printing partner. Orders can be placed through Kendall Hunt: https://he.kendallhunt.com/catalog.