Medical Terminology

1. Read the story first.
2. Bold Face Terms:
Make a separate list of all the definitions of the bold face terms in the story first from your reference sources like a medical dictionary or website etc.
Start by listing all the bold face medical terms and their definitions and cite your sources of reference. Example: appendectomy: the surgical excision of the organ known as the appendix which is a vestigial organ (Webster, 2010)
Then list all your full references at the bottom of your work.
Submit this list as part of your work.

3. Translate definitions into simple terms and insert them into the story:
Next, translate all of the bold faced medical terms into simple language as if you are explaining it to a patient or to someone who may not understand medical terminology and incorporate these simple translations into your story.
This means you should remove the actual medical terms in bold face print but leave the meaning in place with your translated explanations of these terms.
Your finished work should be easily understood. It is OK to alter the sentence structure to accomodate your translations.

Remember to use simple basic language to explain these complicated medical terms to another person.
Highlight your new translation either by bold facing or capitalizing the words.
Do not just insert the definitions. You will not get credit for this and points will be taken off.
The goal here is for you to learn how make the complicated sound simple.
Example:
Initial sentence with medical term in place: The patient is having an appendectomy.
Translation into simple terms in your story: The patient is have his appendix cut out and removed.
In other words, rewrite the story completely in layman’s terms or plain English so that someone without a medical or science background would be able to understand.
Your translation must be clear and easy to understand.
Take into account the context of how the terms were used.
You must use all the bold faced terms “translated meanings” in your story.

So when you are complete you will have a list of terms plus definitions (with sources cited) plus a rewritten story in plain English.

Eyes:

It couldn’t be, was it diplopia or were there really 2 hyperopic folks trying to use a pair of binoculars?
Jim could understand it if they had an astigmatism, cataracts, or a detached retina but they didn’t.
Why were the two men staring into the binoculars? Their eyes were not functioning with proper visual accommodation correctly. One almost performed an accidental enucleation with the binoculars!
Then he discovered the truth, they had the binoculars backwards! How myopic of him, not to see that sooner. Oh, that’s a knee-slapper!

Laura seemed more concerned about blepharoplasty than her presbyopia. She had been researching all of the ads in the local newspaper trying to find the best price.
If she had not had such bad macular degeneration, she might have actually read the article that appeared next to the ad for the “eye doctors “ that detailed the malpractice suits pending against them. She learned the hard way the difference between an optician, optometrist and an ophthalmologist. She actually would have been best served by a plastic surgeon.
She ended up with complications which lead to iridoplegia and exophthalmos.
The “doctor” she selected was actually an optician! Good grief, if she only understood medical terminology better she would have been OK.

Ears

Laura had numerous piercings of her auricles, so many in fact that it was unclear whether or not she had tinnitus or too many dangling objects that hit each other. Since her episode with the ambulance, she had been having labyrinthitis and tympanitis. But she had the flashiest pinna around!

Although she knew that they were unrelated to the accident, she also recalled that her cousin Morticia had come to her home to help take care of her that evening. She had always wondered about Morticia and her desire to become a cosmetologist. All she could think about now was how much she disliked vertigo. She was hoping she didn’t have Meniere’s disease!

Nervous

Jim had to confess. He had been responsible for the writing of the twisted version of the Nursery Rhymes. He had exhibited neuroses about rewriting the stories that had been read to him hundreds of times when he was a child. They thought he might be autistic as a child but the diagnosis was narrowed down to Asperger’s Syndrome.
Laura said that he also had recently been identified as a prime candidate for Alzheimer’s disease. Jim was not psychotic and he did not have epilepsy, and he did not have a cerebrovascular accident either. No matter what is condition was, she was still intrigued by him.
He just insisted on writing “twisted tales” for some course. Laura comforted him by telling him that others would read the tales and perhaps gain enjoyment from them. This made Jim smile.

Endocrine

At last, a reason for all of the functions to take place! Laura had been diagnosed with hypertrophy of her adenohypophysis.

This explained why she stood 6’5” tall . Apparently her pituitary adenoma caused an excessive secretion of growth hormone. She was a great EMT due to her abundant energy due to her hyperthyroidism. Jim always like big eyes and thanks to her overactive thyroid she had a lovely case of exophthalmos. Although she did not like the fact she had to shave her face due to hirsutism. Adding to her unique look were her buffalo hump and moon facies, thanks to her Cushing’s syndrome. Jim loved her for who she was and she appreciated that.

Despite her size, she did not consider herself to have acromegaly or gigantism, but more importantly, neither did Jim. He happened to have cretinism and the two made an awkward but lovable couple who rode off into the sunset together 🙂