This archive contains the important medical abbreviations lists, their meanings, and full forms, when they are used, and their importance.
Medical Abbreviations are those short forms including terminologies used by health workers, especially doctors, nurses, and pharmacists in communicating with one another to make their job of keeping records easier.
It is not uncommon to think that doctors and other health workers use medical abbreviations to intimidate and confuse non-health workers. But this is far from the truth,
Rather, medical abbreviations are used because of the following reasons;
One good reason why medical abbreviation is important is for ease of use. Imagine being a doctor in a clinic with dozens of patients waiting to be attended to and having to write the medical term ‘Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatory Drug’ as a treatment for all patients.
The most natural thing to do is to use the medical abbreviation; ‘NSAIDS’ instead of writing a Non-Steroidal Anti-inflammatory drug. It not only saves the time of the doctor and that of the patients in waiting, but it also reduces stress and burnout.
It is good to note that the recognized medical terminologies are universally accepted by practicing physicians all over the world.
The founding fathers of modern medicine were the Greeks and Romans and in those times, Latin and Greek were regarded as the languages of the enlightened. So old medical texts were written in Latin and Greek languages. So for one to become a doctor of modern medicine, they must first be proficient in Latin and Greek.
But with the westernization of the world and the widespread of the English Language, there was a need for doctors to teach medicine in a language that will be easily understood by the majority.
So, most written texts needed to be translated into English for easy communication.
Some of the terminologies in the original texts did not have a suitable transliteration into the English Language, and they were left as a corruption of Latin, Greek, and English. This gave rise to the medical terminologies you hear today, hence the abbreviations.
Get Stedmans Medical Abbreviation Guide and Terminologies For Medical Students
I first saw the PRN medical abbreviation used by a medical officer during a medical outreach I attended during my final year in medical school. The outreach was structured in such a way that the medical students manned different stands…
