| ||What Your Doctor Is Saying || | Last reviewed by Faculty of
Harvard Medical School on January 13, 2011 By Robert H.
Shmerling, M.D. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center It is
likely that your doctor routinely uses words or phrases when
speaking with other doctors that would sound foreign to you
unless you have a medical background. Although it might sound
like a jumble of long words and phrases, many of the terms have
common roots, prefixes or suffixes. Knowing a few of these can
go a long way in deciphering what may otherwise be
incomprehensible "medicalese." When Your Doctor Is Saying Less
Consider the following: hypothyroid, hypotension, hypocalcemia.
The suffix "hypo-" in each of these words means "too little" of
whatever follows. Consider "aplastic", "anovulatory" or
"avascular." The "a" (or "an") that begins each of these means
"lacking" whatever follows. So, these terms translate as
follows: - Hypothyroid an underactive thyroid gland -
Hypotension low blood pressure - Hypocalcemia low blood calcium