I just returned from the hospital. The consulting physician threw around words like “˜Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography’ without a stutter, but my brain hit a pothole. He went straight ahead to other words which made the health problem seem quite acute. Blame it on the medical words or blame it on my relative lack of medical know-how.
Of course, some doctors are patient enough to explain everything in layman’s terms, but then I don’t think many of them take the Hippocratic Oath for patiently educating the common masses about the arcane medical terminologies. That’s where a free online medical dictionary and encyclopedia can jump right in.
When it comes to health problems and their understanding, it’s the physician who should be the first port of call. But if you want to expand your knowledge, then the web is an information goldmine. A lot of quality medical reference websites exist. Online medical dictionaries are part of some. Here are seven you can check out for the words and terms that doctors skip past you.