Title: Review how to form medical terms.
Course: Sterile Processing Technician I > Section: Reviewing Basic Healthcare Terminology

Review should include

- building terms from word parts by blending roots, prefixes, and suffixes
- separating longer terms into roots, prefixes, and suffixes, and defining their meanings
- showing how and why combining forms may vary slightly in spelling from term to term (e.g., using the combining form hepat- when the suffix begins with a vowel, as in hepatitis vs. using the variation hepato- when the suffix begins with a consonant, as in hepatomegaly).

Process/Skill Questions:

- How would a healthcare worker use knowledge of prefixes, roots, and suffixes to define a medical term?
- What is a combining vowel? When is a combining vowel used?
- What is the usual way to add a suffix to a word root that begins with a consonant? Why?
- What are the prefixes that indicate color? When might such prefixes be used?
- What are the prefixes that indicate number? When might such prefixes be used?
- What are the common prefixes used to construct medical terms?
- What are the common suffixes used to construct medical terms?