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Commonly Misspelled Medical Words
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Most Frequently Misspelled Words in Medicine
A
accommodation note the 2 cs and 2 ms
afferent vs efferent
ascites (sounds like uh-sight-ees)
aphagia vs aphasia
asymmetry and symmetry
auscultation (sounds like oss-cull-tashun)
B
basilar (not basalar bay-sill-urh)
barbiturates (sounds like bar-bit-your-uhts)
branchial vs brachial
C
callus (noun) and callous (adjective) note the ous to make it an adjective
catheterization sounds just like it looks
chalazion (sounds like kuh-laz-ee-on)
circumferential (adverb=circumferentially)
chlamydia (sounds like kluh-mid-ee-uh is a bacterial family member)
cord gets mixed up a lot with chord, cor (heart) and core
cor (heart) with core (like in an apple, or the center of)
D
debridement (sounds like dee-breed-ment or mont)
dependent vs dependant
diaphragm (not diaphram)
dyspareunia (sounds like diss-pair-ee-oo-knee-uh)
E
enuresis vs anuresis
elicit vs illicit
epididymis (epee-did-ee-muss)
erythematosus (arith-uh-mutt-oss-is)
exacerbated vs exasperated
G
gamma (note 2 ms) gamma globulin is two words
gas, gases, gassy gaseous, etc.
I
ileum vs ilium - one is the gut & the other bone)
insufflate (in-sue-flate)
M
malacia (muhl-ace-ee-uh) not malasia
mucus (noun) mucous (adjective) and occasionally mucousy
myxedema (mix-id-eema)
O
occur occurring - occurrence
ophthalmology (most often leave the first h out, and occasionally the l this is not the correct spelling=opthmology)
P
paroxysmal (pair-ox-is-muhl)
perfusion vs profusion
perineal vs peroneal
persistent (not persistant)
petechia (peh-teek-ee-uh) or the plural petechiae (peh-teek-ee-eye)
plane vs plain
pleurisy (not pleuricy or pleuracy plure-iss-see)
polyposis (polly-poe-sis)
prostate vs prostrate
pruritis (prur-it is)
pterygium (tuhr-idg-ee-um)
R
regime vs regimen
S
sagittal (not saggital sadg-it-tuhl)
scalene (from scalenus) not scaline
scarring (not scaring)
seborrheic (sub-ore-ee-ick)
serotonin (sirro-tone-in)
senile (and similar usage, arcus senilis not sinilis)
shotty lymph nodes (not shoddy)
suppuration (supp-ure-ashun)
T
tonsil (not tonsill, but tonsillectomy not tonsilectomy)
trachea trachlear, and combined words with same, trache/o
V
vesicle (and similar words ending in cle when in an adjective form are vesical the cle is changed to cal e.g., vesical urinary system or combined = vesicourinary)
X
xerosis (not zerosis zear-oh-sis)
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