MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY

Do you know what an Otorhinolaryngologist is?

The course in Medical Terminology. Medical terminology (MTL180) is a first semester course offered primarily to students who are studying in the Health Sciences or any other related programmes. The course is presented to students studying Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing, Biological and Agricultural Sciences, Dietetics, Occupational Therapy, Radiology, Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, Veterinary Science and Human Movement Sciences. We want to help students to learn the subject terminology, which is largely derived from Greek- and Latin, with greater ease. The goal of the MTL course is learning about Greek and Latin prefixes, suffixes and combining forms, and to understand the structure of Greek and Latin-based medical terminology, in order to analyse the terms and to derive the meaning of these terms from the analysis. A secondary purpose is to improve the students’ word-building and general language skills. After successful completion of this course the students would be able to analyse a large number of medical terms and to derive the meaning of these terms from their analyses and to understand and remember new medical terminology based on Greek and Latin word components more easily.

An Otorhinolaryngologist is a person (suffix: -ist), who studies or specialises (combining form: LOG) in the ear (combining form: OT), the nose (combining form: RHIN) and the throat (combining form: LARYNG). So, an ORL is a specialist who can be consulted if you suffer from severe otitis, rhinitis or laryngitis.

The Module code for Medical Terminology is MTL 180.

For further information, please contact Dr Koos Kritzinger ([email protected]).