medical latin root/dictionary

[jop9095]

Hi everyone,

I was well aware that latin roots play an important part in the medical terminology. I have been trying to memorize these as much as possible back in undergrad but the whole process was not that helpful for me. I came from a completely differently language system and I often have to link latin roots to my native language and again to English.

In you opinion, will fluency in latin roots affect my ability to interpret and memorize terminologies in medical school. I was able to complete undergrad and masters without latin roots but kind of worried for medical school.

Thanks for the help!

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[mdphdNYC]

I took Latin as a "fun" class in college. It was useful first-year in anatomy as almost all of the Latin terms are quite uncreatively describing what the thing is. It hasn't really been useful since then - if you enjoy learning Latin I would do it, but don't expect it will make a whole lot of difference. Also a lot of terms come from Greek so... YMMV

 

[jop9095]

I took Latin as a "fun" class in college. It was useful first-year in anatomy as almost all of the Latin terms are quite uncreatively describing what the thing is. It hasn't really been useful since then - if you enjoy learning Latin I would do it, but don't expect it will make a whole lot of difference. Also a lot of terms come from Greek so... YMMV

Thanks! I will try to get prepared for that!

 

[MSTPlease]

As someone who was very experienced with both latin and greek during college I will say it definitely did help, but I wouldn't bother taking the time to learn them for the purpose of having a better grasp of medical terminology. I don't think that's a valuable use of your time. I put those hours in and learned all that stuff so I could read things from ancient greece and rome in the original language, not for medical school.

 

[kraskadva]

I had both latin and greek as well before coming to med school and found them very helpful for 1st year material.
But I didn't know all the roots before I went in...I mean, in those language classes you're usually reading poetry or literature, not anatomy terms. What was super helpful though was having the dictionaries (also available online) so whenever I hit a new term, I would look up what it meant. 99/100 times it would be the most basic descriptor words smashed together for the name, just in latin/greek. But knowing what those meant helped with memorizing both the terminology and the location of structures.

i.e.
salpingopharyngeous muscle --> salpingo = tube, pharyngeous = of the pharynx (back of the throat), so that's the muscle that runs between the opening of the Eustachian tube and the back of the throat.
extensor carpi radialis brevis m.--> extensor= something that extends, carpi = wrist, radialis = of the radius bone, brevis = short(er), so it's teh shorter muscle on the radial side of the arm that flexes the wrist.
So you just gotta know where to break up the words and then look up the roots.

If you're coming from a romance language initially, then a lot of the terms will be carried over between latin and your first language anyway, which may be helpful for you, but may also be confusing since many terms get twisted to mean something else when they're part of the common lexicon. I had a Puerto Rican student inform me of an alternate slang meaning to "sal pingo" (possibly spelled differently but sounds the same) that is entertainingly different. So beware of that.

 

[jop9095]

Thanks for the help!

 

[jop9095]

I had both latin and greek as well before coming to med school and found them very helpful for 1st year material.
But I didn't know all the roots before I went in...I mean, in those language classes you're usually reading poetry or literature, not anatomy terms. What was super helpful though was having the dictionaries (also available online) so whenever I hit a new term, I would look up what it meant. 99/100 times it would be the most basic descriptor words smashed together for the name, just in latin/greek. But knowing what those meant helped with memorizing both the terminology and the location of structures.

i.e.
salpingopharyngeous muscle --> salpingo = tube, pharyngeous = of the pharynx (back of the throat), so that's the muscle that runs between the opening of the Eustachian tube and the back of the throat.
extensor carpi radialis brevis m.--> extensor= something that extends, carpi = wrist, radialis = of the radius bone, brevis = short(er), so it's teh shorter muscle on the radial side of the arm that flexes the wrist.
So you just gotta know where to break up the words and then look up the roots.

If you're coming from a romance language initially, then a lot of the terms will be carried over between latin and your first language anyway, which may be helpful for you, but may also be confusing since many terms get twisted to mean something else when they're part of the common lexicon. I had a Puerto Rican student inform me of an alternate slang meaning to "sal pingo" (possibly spelled differently but sounds the same) that is entertainingly different. So beware of that.

I will definitely pay attention to these!

What brand of dictionary would you recommend?

 

[kraskadva]

I will definitely pay attention to these!

What brand of dictionary would you recommend?

Since it's 2018...Google
It's all online now. Wikipedia has the etymology 9/10 times and Google covers the rest.