Course Description

Learn how to understand the language of medicine in six weeks from an experienced instructor. If you are considering a health care career, interested in the medical field, or would like to be able to understand your doctor and/or their medical condition, Understanding Medical Terminology class is for you. This is a 5 week, self-paced, online course. If you need additional help understanding the material presented, you can communicate with the instructor and fellow classmates. The instructor will monitor and track your progress throughout the class. LVS Online offers many wonderful learning tools to help you get the most out of your online course, including an online portfolio service that manages all your course registrations, certificate of completion option, a class discussion board to interact with your instructor and fellow classmates, free hosting account, and a student upload area. LVS is a Corel Training Partner. LVS students may purchase Corel products at a significant savings. Follow this link for details. LVS students are eligible to receive software and hardware at a discount. Follow this link for details. Students are also eligible take advantage of special offers made available specifically for LVS by famous software developers such as Andromeda, AV Bros, Extensis, Harry Heim, namesuppressed, Nik Multimedia, and Ulead. Details are provided in the classinfo link found in the confirmation of registration. Show off your LVS Online spirit with an item from the LVS Store If you would like to receive more information regarding this course, click on the "Contact Us" link in the Information section and we'll try to answer any of your questions within the day.

Course Requirements

I do recommend that you purchase or borrow a medical dictionary if possible. You can find one at any major bookstore, such as Borders or Waldenbooks. Some great medical dictionaries are Stedman's Medical Dictionary, Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, 21st Edition (Thumb Index Version), Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary with CD-ROM, and Mosby's Medical Dictionary. These are just a few of the choices that are available. A medical dictionary will be a life-long resource in the medical field, especially if you are interested in medical transcription or medical billing and coding. Basic computer knowledge. Free Windows Class Here Directory Structure Tutorial Here Zip files may be necessary to complete the exercises provided each week. WinZip, PKZip, Windows Compression or similar program is required to unzip these files. Winzip Tutorial Here Windows Compression All lessons are available in PDF format. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view/print the lessons. Plan to devote 1 - 3 hours per week on the lesson and assignment.

Course Prerequisites

None

Course Syllabus

Lesson 1 Discuss some of the more commonly used prefixes, suffixes, and roots in medical terminology. Lesson 2 Discuss medical abbreviations, including the definitions. Discuss when and why medical abbreviations are used. Lesson 3 Discuss basic anatomy and physiology and how this relates to medical terminology. Lesson 4 Discuss pharmacology, the study of medications. This will include the classifications, side effects, and purposes. Lesson 5 Discuss and review sample medical case studies to see your medical terminology knowledge in action. Students will be creating sample medical case studies as well. Lesson 6 A review of all material that was discussed. A discussion of how medical terminology is used in the health care field with information on various health care careers will also be included.

Course Excerpt

LESSON 1 One of the first lessons I would like to discuss is that you need to be patient with yourself while you are learning medical terminology. You will be learning a new language. And this will take time. So it's very important not to be too hard on yourself during this learning process. You will find that you are slowly building a foundation of knowledge with medical terms. And this is a very important step. It's the same concept as in construction. The foundation is what holds everything up. Once you have the foundation in place, you will find that defining medical terms and spelling medical terms will become easier. And it will continue to become easier with each completed lesson. You will receive a weekly lesson, consisting of a list of medical terms with their definitions, medical abbreviations, and medications. You will need to be able to spell the medical terms and know the definitions for each. You will also need to know how to define the medical abbreviations. With the medications, you need to be able to spell them. It is not necessary to know the drug classification that I provide. I supply you with that information just for your knowledge base. An example of this would be the medication Phenergan. The classification is an anti emetic. This means it helps prevent or treat nausea. You would not need to know that it's an anti emetic, just the spelling of Phenergan. You will have a weekly quiz over the covered material. This will be included with the weekly lesson. You will need to complete the quiz and return it via Internet to me. You may use your lessons to complete the test. Please remember that spelling is extremely critical in the medical field. If you misspell a term, it will be counted as incorrect. Extra credit work is available. Accepted examples of extra credit work are listed below. If you wish to complete an extra credit assignment that is not on the list, please email me for prior approval. You may create a mock case study/case history. It needs to include 5 medical terms and 5 medical abbreviations. You need to underline each medical term and medical abbreviation. At the bottom of the assignment, please define the underlined terms and abbreviations. A sample case study will be included in future lessons. A report on one of the terms of the week. Please have the length one page, double-spaced, with a font no larger than 18. An example of this would be the term gastrectomy. You would write a research paper based on the removal of the stomach. A set of 10 Jeopardy questions. An example of this would be. Answer: Adenoma. Question: What is the medical term for a tumor of a gland? Remember, that you must have it in the form of a question. Scramble ten medical terms. An example of this would be maaedon. After you have scrambled the term, please define it. The answer to the example would be adenoma, the medical term for a tumor of a gland. You may "create" medical terms that we have not covered using the prefixes, suffixes, and roots that we have reviewed. An example of this would be dermatology. This was not one of the terms given for review but the prefix, root, and suffix were discussed. So you could scramble the term dermatology and define it. You would define the term as the study of the skin. Now we move onto the terms. You will need to know the following terms for next week. Remember, that you are building a foundation and it's important to learn these as we go. It's much easier for you to study and learn each term and principle as well go instead of playing "catch up" and trying to cram them all in at once. I will list the term for you and then define the term. I will also include information for each term by the prefix, suffix, and root. I do recommend that you purchase or borrow a medical dictionary if possible. You can find one at any major bookstore, such as Borders or Waldenbooks. Some great medical dictionaries are Stedmans, Tabors, Dorlands, and Mosbys. These are just a few of the choices that are available. Remember that a medical dictionary will be a resource for you in any job in the medical field, especially if you are interested in medical transcription or medical billing and coding. Continued... Please note: Lessons provide step-by-step instructions with detailed screen captures.

Course Goals

This course will provide basic understanding of the language of medicine, medical terminology.

Course Reviews

Shirley: " I enjoyed the material that was presented and all the illustrations. It was an interesting class and I liked the repetition and I didn't have to wrack my brain so much that I could not finish the classes. " More...