Questions tagged [medical]

This tag is for questions about the use of English in the science or practice of medicine. It can include medical terminology. Consider adding [terminology] tag if seeking for a term also.

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Word for "multi-influenced"

I am looking for a word to describe a phenomenon that has multiple influences. For example, a disease that has many risk factors. It can be used in a sentence such as: Although the disease is likely {...
3 votes
1 answer
128 views

"Dementia" today vs 100 years ago -- did it mean the same thing?

I know that words for mental illnesses have changed quite a bit in the past century or so. Informally, I think most people see a difference between "crazy" and "unintelligent" ...
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4 votes
2 answers
77 views

What is a formal word or term for forgetting what you were doing or saying while doing or saying it?

While running downstairs to do something important, I notice how sunny it is outside, and by the time I reach the bottom of the stairs I forget why I ran down the stairs in the first place! Or I’m in ...
5 votes
2 answers
402 views

Does "rickety" come from "rickets" or vice versa?

If you have rickets your skeleton could be said to be rickety, perhaps. I wonder whether "rickets" comes from "rickety" or vice versa. The Merriam Webster entry for rickety says ...
2 votes
0 answers
30 views

Usage of BIPOLAR as an adjective in medical terminology [closed]

I'm doing a research on medical terms and their usage in general language. I'm working on BIPOLAR which is kind of misused in laymen speech, e.g. "I feel bipolar today" which actually means &...
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1 answer
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Which is more appropriate to the context; from or after. The context is Medical English [closed]

Sentence A: She is recovering from a surgery Sentence B: She is recovering after a surgery
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0 answers
52 views

Single medical term for "taking a pulse"

I have been searching for a technical/medical term to use in place of "taking a pulse". I see some texts use "palpatory measurements" in place of the colloquial "taking a ...
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2 votes
1 answer
94 views

Etymology of "nasal specs" as a synonym for "nasal cannula"?

For context, this is in the UK—I was told by someone they had been given "nasal specs"—which was the term they had been told when they got them, and then I asked someone I know who is a ...
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0 answers
39 views

Is there a difference between the adverbs “Melancholily” and “Melancholically”?

Melancholia is an old and quite beautiful word which describes a depressed state. It was used as a noun in the same way that “depression” is currently used - and in the medical field was a diagnosis ...
1 vote
1 answer
168 views

What does 'ed' mean? [closed]

I natively speak Swedish and have been studying medicine over here, but got offered to learn from a British professor online. And when he went through all the different branches he kept referring to ...
1 vote
1 answer
45 views

Word for attributing multiple diseases to the same cause? [closed]

What is the medical term for attributing multiple diseases to the same cause? I assume it is Greek, so it would pan-etiology or pan-onosis or something like that.
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1 vote
1 answer
74 views

Do you contract a disease or a virus? Or either?

You are infected by a virus, not a disease. You can develop a disease, but not a virus (unless you are a virus-developing scientist, I guess -- but you know that's not what I mean). I guess what I'm ...
0 votes
1 answer
72 views

Which/ That/ Present Participle

I'm working on the translation of a product packaging. Uses: Boosting liver function which helps cleanse blood plasma, the liquid portion of blood which/that accounts for 55% of its volume. Would it ...
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1 answer
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Hallucination and meditation [closed]

Can we say that imagination in Meditation is a hallucination? When I imagine something in meditation can I hallucinate or hallucination is unconscious and meditation is a conscious experience . ...
4 votes
1 answer
277 views

What does the word "mortability" exactly mean?

I've come across quite a few medical articles in which the word "mortability" appears. e.g. In the National Library of Medicine : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=mortability. As I ...
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0 answers
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Word for medical treatment gone wrong (not malpractice)

I am looking for a word (noun) or expression that describes medical treatment gone wrong, where the treatment was not the correct one, or where something else went wrong, possibly due to unforeseen ...
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1 vote
0 answers
49 views

Help with a medical term for addiction to medicinal properties

I am looking for a word I had heard on a medical show ages ago, The Good Doctor to be specific, to use on my medical project in high school. The term referred to someone who had a sort of addiction to ...
5 votes
1 answer
829 views

What did my dead English opthalmologist write that looks like pziou or pzio9? [closed]

I received a registered mail of all my charts from my dead opthalmologist's office. He was Caucasian. He had yellow hair. He spoke English with the Received Pronunciation. I found this hand writing ...
user avatar
2 votes
2 answers
67 views

Atrium and ventricle

I was trying to find the original meanings of "atrium" and "ventricle" before they were adopted by heart anatomy. So far I learned that atrium is a word in architecture. But it ...
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4 votes
1 answer
376 views

Why does medicine term total number of pregnancies carried over the threshold of viability 'parity'?

Gravidity and Parity Definitions (Implications in Risk Assessment) | Patient Gravidity is defined as the number of times that a woman has been pregnant. Parity is defined as the number of times that ...
user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
565 views

In "The Plague" by Camus, what does the author mean when he talks about ganglia?

In Gilbert's 1948 translation of Camus' La Peste, "The Plague", there are frequent references to "ganglia" as one of the symptoms of the bubonic plague (yersinia pestis). The ...
0 votes
0 answers
32 views

Adding "an" or not, when describing different medical conditions - are there rules?

First off, I'll admit that attempting to codify the use of "a" & "the" could easily drive a person insane. I hope you'll forgive me for asking such a question. However, I've ...
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2 answers
174 views

cross-condition meaning in medical section text?

I read this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5362694/ author says "Walraven and colleagues [11] developed the “LACE” index, a cross-conditions tool that predicts early death ...
-1 votes
2 answers
243 views

Never showing any symptoms

I am looking for the word for someone who never shows any symptoms of a disease. I am not looking for the word asymptomatic. Asymptomatic is often used for people who initially display no symptoms ...
1 vote
1 answer
131 views

How is the word 'gullet' understood by non-medical English speakers?

I've found that there are several dialect words that mean both 'windpipe' and 'gullet'. This is true of Wright's (old, but monumental) dialect dictionary (see e.g. 'kecker'). It also holds in a ...
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0 answers
37 views

Relation of the etymology of «epilepsy» and «cataplexy» to their meaning

I want to know the exact meaning of these 2 words (they are a medical words ... I know their scientific meaning, I need the relation of their etymology to their meaning) the prefix and the suffix of ...
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0 answers
32 views

"A low LDL level" vs "low LDL level"

Which is grammatically accurate : "Mrs.Anna has a low LDL level" Or "Mrs.Anna has low LDL level" I want to go with the first sentence.
-1 votes
1 answer
56 views

Someone who carries out medical procedures in a UI

I wanted to know if there is a specific hypernym for the role of someone who performs medical procedures (including, in this case, dental hygienists, dentists and dental nurses) that could be used in ...
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0 votes
1 answer
1k views

What is the difference between 'patient' and 'casualty'?

In my experience, the terms 'patient' and 'casualty' tend to be used pretty interchangeably when referring to people in need of medical attention. However, I feel like there's definitely a semantic ...
2 votes
0 answers
54 views

Medical (anatomy) issue

I’m not a native speaker, but I found a difference in my anatomy book between “is related medially” and “ is located medially” that they have the opposite meaning... Is it true?
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2 votes
1 answer
242 views

Synonym for "turd" [closed]

Is there a countable noun with the exact same meaning as "turd" - a single, formed piece of faecal matter? Giving the reason for this enquiry might illustrate why 'stool' doesn't really work IMO. (1) ...
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4 votes
2 answers
136 views

Is there a term for the combination of a finger bone (phalanx) plus all the soft tissue around that bone?

I originally asked this on the Biology site, but someone pointed me towards this site in their answer for a full-on word request stating this site might be more helpful in that regard. I was ...
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0 votes
0 answers
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Do I use an apostrophe if I'm referring to several medical IVs? [duplicate]

First sentence (with apostrophe): The IV's continued to drip as she thrashed on the bed. OR Second sentence (no apostrophe): The IVs continued to drip as she thrashed on the bed. Which one of ...
0 votes
1 answer
60 views

How do I say that an infection was transmitted to me by droplet contact without sounding weird?

There's a list of ways an infection can be transmitted from one person to another: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_(medicine) I can say, "This infection was transmitted to me sexually". ...
0 votes
4 answers
569 views

What is a single-word adjective for relating /pertaining to physical addictiveness?

I need an adjective which means roughly 'of a tendency to cause physical dependence' that can be applied to drugs. 'Addictive' or the like won't work because it doesn't distinguish between physical ...
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12 votes
5 answers
3k views

Is there a word for the condition of being infested with ticks? [closed]

Is there a word or term for the state of a human or animal infested with ticks? Mainly just curious. Examples: He's suffering from ______. Don't get near him: he has _____.
-3 votes
2 answers
83 views

"Can help treat high blood pressure" OR "Can help cure high blood pressure"?

Hawthorn tea can help treat high blood pressure/can help cure high blood pressure. I think "cure" is better. Because most of the time we use cure something, but we use treat someone for something (...
1 vote
1 answer
103 views

Exclude OR Rule out OR else?

Rachel often gets really bad headaches. She is afraid of having a brain tumor. I know that she does not have other symptoms, which are common in brain tumor so I do not think it is likely that she has ...
3 votes
1 answer
330 views

Why don't our poor hands get the same Latin-rooted medical care as our feet?

If we want our feet checked, we go to a podiatrist, if we want our hearts checked, we go to a cardiologist. Why, then, if we have a hand problem, do we go to a hand surgeon or a hand doctor and not a ...
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6 votes
2 answers
600 views

Hypernym for "pertaining to (body part)"?

What is a hypernym for the adjectives which describe various body parts or systems? For example: eyes : ocular lungs : pulmonary ears : aural How would I best phrase asking for such words, for ...
-1 votes
2 answers
106 views

What does it mean if a medical faculty doesn't have "standard medical facilities"?

As English is not my first language, I'm not sure what this means. I've come across a post on a forum saying that some medical schools don't have "standard medical facilities". Here's the whole ...
0 votes
1 answer
95 views

Why is the word 'resuscitation' preferred over 'revival' or 'resurrection' in medical contexts?

this has been boggling me for a long time now. I never heard of what doctors do in intensive care as 'revival', 'bringing up the dead' or something else. If medical staff of any kind is involved, it ...
0 votes
2 answers
70 views

are there words exist that are for foreign bodies that [closed]

So are there any words that differentiate foreign bodies in the human body that between neutral, beneficial, and disadvantageous foreign bodies.
4 votes
1 answer
456 views

Hyphenating multi-word phrases [duplicate]

I'm trying to figure out whether or not to hyphenate a new medical-related phrase, "post birth control syndrome." I know Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is hyphenated, but that seems to make sense ...
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3 votes
1 answer
5k views

Sprained ankle vs. twisted ankle

Here are the definitions of the words from Oxford Living Dictionaries: sprain - wrench or twist the ligaments of (an ankle, wrist, or other joint) violently so as to cause pain and swelling but not ...
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2 votes
1 answer
69 views

Is there a word for a medical person who only does one proceedure? [closed]

A word for a medical person who specializes in one specific proceedure within a medical specialty?
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28 votes
6 answers
6k views

Is "allopathy" pejorative?

Is using the term "allopathy" to describe mainstream (i.e. real) medicine, pejorative? I know the term was originally used by homeopaths to insult real medicine, but I have heard it being used more ...
0 votes
4 answers
102 views

Word for data/information from medical scanner

I need a word for "information from a scanning as it appears in the image used for diagnostics". My context is medical (physics). SPECT and CT are two scanning techniques with different ...
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14 votes
2 answers
4k views

Is there a term for a disease that is spread ONLY from person to person?

I'm looking for a term to describe a disease that is spread ONLY from person to person, not from animal to person (zoonosis): Zoonosis: any disease of animals communicable to humans (Dictionary.com)...
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0 votes
1 answer
4k views

The meaning of the word "hemophilia" [closed]

In medical terminology, words are often combined of Greek and Latin roots and affixes. And we can recognize the meaning of a word by knowing the meaning of the prefix, the root and the suffix. The ...
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