Acquiring Medical Language

Most medical terminology texts present the roots on one page, body system on one page, and a list of related anatomical terms on the next. The result is students fail to make connections and end up approaching the course as a never-ending series of lists to be memorized. Acquiring Medical Language is language focused. It introduces students to roots with illustrations of body systems and surrounds that information with term blocks that include specific word roots, examples containing that root, and some interesting facts to make the information more memorable. This exposes students to all the relevant information (the root, its meaning, its use), so they see how it relates to the other roots in the context of the body system. Each chapter of AML also is structured around the S.O.A.P framework. S.O.A.P stands for the four general parts of a medical note: Subjective, Objective, Assessment and Plan. After introducing the student to the important roots and the medical terms relevant to the body system, the roots are presented using the SOAP note as an organizational framework. Terms are presented to students under the following learning objectives:S – Subjective – Patient History, Problems, ComplaintsO – Objective – Observation and DiscoveryA – Assessment – Diagnosis and PathologyP – Plan – Treatments and Therapies