For this assignment I interviewed my aunt. She has been a nurse for 23 years and currently works at Northeast Rehab in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. We talked for about 20 minutes about the roles of medical terminology within the health care field, and more specifically, the role they play in nursing. These are the interview questions and my aunts’ responses:
How do you use medical language in your job? With whom?
- Nurses use medical terminology in their jobs every single day. We use it to communicate with one another and relay important information to the doctors and other medical professionals about any changes or recurrences in the patients.
How does using medical terminology support your professional role?
- Using Medical Terminology supports my professional role because it helps me communicate with precision and clarity. It also displays a clear understanding of the complexity of the medical field. Medical terms are also efficient and help with accurate documentation.
Can you share some examples of word parts, terms and abbreviations you use daily?
- Yes! I use different medical terminology about the heart daily, some examples of that are cardi, brady, and tachy. I also use lots of terms such as bilateral, acute, chronic, lesion, and edema is a big one too. And then of course you have the suffixes that are attached to lots of different things that give a more general sense of what the issue could be, itis and algia.
How is medical language used in patient records?
- As I stated before, medical terminology is used in patient records to offer clear and concise descriptions of what is occurring with the patient. Med terms also help with understanding a patient’s medical history, which is an important part of giving good care.
Clearly using medical terminology is an essential part of any professional health care role. It was surprising to me how useful medical terminology can be for communicating with your peers when working together. I never thought about the imperative nature of communicating efficiently with the people on your team. Combining all the separate knowledge through documentation and clear understanding of the language used in the medical field ensures that the patient receives the optimal care they deserve. Overall, medical terminology is comparable to a secrete language that offers vital knowledge to health care providers. Learning and understanding this secrete language is crucial to satisfactory patient care.
