Health Topics
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Understanding Medical Words Tutorial
Your doctor gives you a prescription. It says b-i-d. What does that mean?
When you get the prescription, the bottle says, "Twice a day." Where is b-i-d?
B-i-d comes from the Latin " bis in die " which means twice-daily dosage.
Sometimes medical words really ARE a foreign language!
Getting creative with shortcuts. To test the function of your thyroid gland, your doctor may order two tests.
She's written T3 and T4. What's are these?
- T3 stands for triiodothyronine. Tri is Greek for three.
- T4 stands for tetraiodothyronine or thyroxine. Tetra is Greek for four.
Which would you rather write?
Your doctor might order an electrocardiogram, a test that measures electrical waves from your heart.
He might write EKG on the prescription pad. Why is electrocardiogra abbreviated E-K-G ?
It is to make sure that you get a heart test instead of a brain test called an electroencephalogram, which is written as EEG. That could look like ECG if the doctor wrote it in a hurry.
Try a quiz on things covered so far with quiz #4, See What You Know Now or proceed to the next chapter Learn More.