Are medical terminology courses useful for pre-meds?

[simondimond]

I have three credits open.

Medical terminology is open

Do you think it will help me out in any way in the long run?

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[CodeBlu]

I have three credits open.

Medical terminology is open

Do you think it will help me out in any way in the long run?

They say med school is all about learning the lingo... hmmmm it could be a very beneficial class to you.

 

[WorldChanger36]

Couldn't hurt.

 

[young2sj]

It's an easy A, take it.
I took a medical terminology class last year and it was a piece of cake, seriously.

you're not going to be learning anything difficult. It will mostly cover root words, prefixes, suffixes, and their definitions.

 

[willen101383]

Will it be useful? Marginally. It takes 2 seconds to google a word you dont know vs taking a whole course on terminology you will be force fed in med school regardless.

 

[simondimond]

Will this course be beneficial for someone who wants to take A&P during undergrad?

I didn't know if this course was designed for pre-meds or people who know absolutely nothing about the health professions.

If it makes A&P any easier, then I guess it would be worth it.

 

[Epen]

Any other courses you're considering? It's hard to tell you to take a class when there may be better ones we don't know about...

 

[lisi326]

I found taking medical terminology to be extremely helpful, personally. it's an easy A and will likely benefit you later

 

[Breno58]

Make sure you use the terminology after the class. Its easy to forgot 1-2 years down the road!

 

[kpcrew]

If you have a better choice, I'd take it. It might be more prudent to take a basic science class and gain a firm understanding of the fundamental concepts that govern the subject. I took an anatomy class and after a year, I don't remember much since I don't use it in my daily life.

 

[bassvp]

I vote yes. I found my 1-hour medical terminology course immensely helpful for pharmacy school. Sucked to wake up early on Friday morning, but well worth my money and time.

 

[QuizzicalApe]

Gonna put another vote in the "I don't know if it would help, but I can't see how it would hurt" column.

If it seems like an easy class, it can help you out in the long run by giving you an A to push into your GPA.

 

[Mithril]

I'd take it. I took a medical terminology course last year and it's already coming in pretty handy. Same with anatomy.

 

[Morsetlis]

Will it be useful? Marginally. It takes 2 seconds to google a word you dont know vs taking a whole course on terminology you will be force fed in med school regardless.

They don't teach you medical terminology in med school. You are expected to know Latin and Greek

The class is an easy, easy A. It also probably won't count for anything except your cGPA and, imho, completely useless to your future development as a physician unless you are really bad at Latin/Greek prefixes and suffixes (remedied by... reading books at an early age).

 

[Epen]

They don't teach you medical terminology in med school. You are expected to know Latin and Greek

The class is an easy, easy A. It also probably won't count for anything except your cGPA and, imho, completely useless to your future development as a physician unless you are really bad at Latin/Greek prefixes and suffixes (remedied by... reading books at an early age).

Now you have me thinking...there is a "Scientific Latin and Greek" course at my school. Do you think that would be similar?

 

[Morsetlis]

Classes with names more than two words long aren't serious classes.

 

[mmmcdowe]

Will it be useful? Marginally. It takes 2 seconds to google a word you dont know vs taking a whole course on terminology you will be force fed in med school regardless.

 

[45408]

Gonna put another vote in the "I don't know if it would help, but I can't see how it would hurt" column.

If it seems like an easy class, it can help you out in the long run by giving you an A to push into your GPA.

because it looks lame that you clearly took a class that was meant to be an easy A. You're going to learn all of this stuff anyway, so I can't see a good reason to waste your time in a class teaching you words that are otherwise meaningless to you. Unless you know what to do when your patient has choledocholithiasis, then knowing it's a big cool word isn't useful.

 

[medicalmatins]

Oh, take it! I took a med term class in college, and I barely have to study for our vocab quizzes. I love it! Med term is a close second to taking Latin in preparation for the language of medicine.

 

[QuizzicalApe]

because it looks lame that you clearly took a class that was meant to be an easy A. You're going to learn all of this stuff anyway, so I can't see a good reason to waste your time in a class teaching you words that are otherwise meaningless to you. Unless you know what to do when your patient has choledocholithiasis, then knowing it's a big cool word isn't useful.

If pursuing the easy A is a pervasive strategy, that'll sink you. I don't know if one easy A, however goofy and pandering, will have that same negative effect. I agree with the sentiment in general though; extra credits are better spent on pursuing interests you won't have time for in med school.

Enjoy it while you can.

 

[simondimond]

Thanks for the replies.

Whether its an easy A or not is irrelevant to me.

I was just confused as to whether this class was for people like medical coders, nursing students, and other people in healthcare who had absolutely no knowledge of medical terminology and people like pre-meds who want to go to medical school.

If this class will give you any type of edge as far as helping you in other classes, I'll just sign up for it.

 

[QuizzicalApe]

Thanks for the replies.

Whether its an easy A or not is irrelevant to me.

I was just confused as to whether this class was for people like medical coders, nursing students, and other people in healthcare who had absolutely no knowledge of medical terminology and people like pre-meds who want to go to medical school.

If this class will give you any type of edge as far as helping you in other classes, I'll just sign up for it.

It probably won't

 

[45408]

If this class will give you any type of edge as far as helping you in other classes

It won't.

 

[ShockDoctrine]

I don't know if this is possible for you, but it might be better to take research credits. It's usually an easy A and you do research! Win-win

 

[willen101383]

They don't teach you medical terminology in med school. You are expected to know Latin and Greek

The class is an easy, easy A. It also probably won't count for anything except your cGPA and, imho, completely useless to your future development as a physician unless you are really bad at Latin/Greek prefixes and suffixes (remedied by... reading books at an early age).

I havent found this to be the case at all. If a term isnt outright explained it is easy enough to google words.

I dunno OP. Just seems like a huge waste of a class to me. But if you are trying to push your GPA up a bit it might be a class for you.


AHHH EDIT: My sarcasm detector must be broken! But either way my post still stands. Huge waste of time.

 

[MathewsMD]

It's a bird course....why not?