Jargon buster

Medicine is full of jargon. One supposes it came about historically for doctors to convey their superiority over mere mortals. On the other hand for conversations between health care professionals it is easier to use terminology which immediately conveys disease processes. Unfortunately we sometime forget this when talking to our patients. There are ways round this.

	Firstly, if you don't understand something ask for it to be explained to you. Doctors and nurses are not known to bite heads off ( although Dr V is partial to those of jelly babies).
	Look at the resources pages on this web site about the condition(s) you are interested in. Some of the general sites such as NHS direct are a good place to start.
	Look in a medical dictionary- see below

Medilexicon

This British site contains a dictionary of over 70,000 medical, pharmaceutical and health care acronyms and abbreviations and medical terms searchable in various ways.

University of Maryland Medicine (USA) has produced an online Medical Encyclopaedia which is divided into eight main reference areas (Disease, Injury, Nutrition, Poison, Special Topic, Surgery, Symptoms and Test ) which are then searchable in alphabetical order but there is no search box.

If on the other hand you think the following definitions make any sense to you then click onto the Alternative guide to medical terms and their meanings!

Term	Definition
Artery	The study of painting
Bacteria	Back door to a cafeteria
Barium	What undertakers do after the doctor's treatment fails
Bowel	A letter like A,E,I,O or U

Send mail to V.Masharani@GP-C82611.nhs.uk with questions or comments about this web site.

This page was last updated 26-09-07