Teaching medical English presents an opportunity to help sensitize students to various characteristics of medical terms, that can be helpful for students in their future studies of technical terms. Rather than focusing strictly on learning the meaning of a word, other aspects of the word can be studied in order to be able to predict the meaning of unfamiliar words.
To demonstrate this, we use the anatomy of the foot as an example. Some words are fully technical (e.g. phalanges); words that are known primarily by specialists within a field. Other terms can be considered lay technical terms; words known to the general reader (e.g. toe). In addition to these, long-time JASMEE member, Simon Fraser has created a new category of words, which he calls “cryptotechnical” terms (e.g. superior); familiar words which become “technicalized”, taking on specific meanings within a discipline (for a detailed explanation, refer to this article). In medicine, inferior and superior are purely locational terms meaning “below” and “above”. In contrast, in general English, the words refer to quality. Encounters with cryptotechnical terms in a medical English course provide an opportunity to explain to students that many words they will study in their field will have a different meaning from the general definition(s).
Finally, medical English terms often consist of word parts. An example of a single word consisting of just one part is foot. In contrast, orthopedic has three parts: orth(o) root meaning “straight”, ped(o) root meaning “foot”, and -ic suffix meaning “pertaining to”. However, this may be more information than necessary for many medical students, and so Fraser has categorized the word into two parts (ortho/pedic). By learning common word parts encountered in medical English studies and their respective meanings, students may be able to comprehend a technical term’s meaning with greater efficiency and better predict the meaning of unknown words. The article linked above contains a list of word parts, and while most medical English courses are not primarily focused on vocabulary acquisition, these word parts can be explained to students when the opportunity arises.