Syllabus

Science Prerequisites for Health Professionals

MEDT 1000: Medical Terminology (2019)

Credits - 3

Description

This online course is a 3-credit hour course delivered at a distance and designed to provide the student interested in health care, health care delivery, or graduate study in some aspect of medicine or health care a broad and comprehensive understanding of the unique language of medical terminology.  

Materials

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

Learning Outcomes for Science Prerequisites for Health Professions Program

In lecture courses, students should be able to:

1. Communicate scientific concepts and information clearly.
2. Illustrate fundamental laws, theories, and principles of scientific disciplines.
3. Apply knowledge and critical thinking skills to scientific problems.

Course Objectives

This course may serve as an introduction to the language of medicine.  It is particularly useful for two types of students: 1) those interested in pursuing a career in a health-related field (such as medical transcription or medical office work), or 2) those needing to fulfill a requirement needed for application to a health profession school, such as physician assistant, medicine, dentistry, optometry, physical therapy or other related field.  It could also be useful for those interested in ancient language or the derivation of language in modern health care.  

The subjects to be covered include:

• basic medical word construction and medical language derivation, combining forms, roots, prefixes and suffixes; and
• the language of systems including:  body structure and organization, integumentary system, musculoskeletal system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, nervous system, urinary and reproductive systems, digestive, blood, endocrine and lymphatic systems.

The course will be taught with an emphasis on foundational word structure construction.  Then building on this foundation, a systems-based approach will follow until the student has the skills and knowledge to derive meaning from most all common terms used in the medical profession and/or the ability to derive meaning from an unknown word due to knowledge of root and combining form basics.  This is a course that is heavy on memorization, repetition, and skills that build on previous knowledge. The course is comprehensive in nature.  Because of this comprehensive nature, it is vital that each module be mastered before moving on.  The course is considered self-paced, so you can plan your progression accordingly, as long as it is completed by the last day of the course.  Basic anatomy and physiological concepts will be introduced along the way such that at the completion the student will have a solid understanding of basic medical language and a rudimentary start on basic medical science and health related concepts that will be useful for other courses.

SELF PACED DESIGN

On the course start date, students will have access to orientation. This must be completed to be able to gain access to the first module in the course. Students must complete the first module to gain access to the next one. We recommend that students spend about 15 hours per week to complete a course in 16 weeks. When trying to complete the course in less than 16 weeks, we typically see students do this successfully within 12-14 weeks. Instructors will be timely in grading and feedback, but it will not be instant.

Assignments

Homework Assignments

In order to be successful in this course and retain the information for future coursework, you will need to complete the assigned homework from each chapter.  The homework has been carefully selected and much of this material will re-occur on quizzes, and especially on exams.  The homework will not be collected or graded.  Answers are in the textbook. If you have any questions about specific problems or questions, please contact the professor and a detailed answer will be given.

Quiz and Exam Information

All quizzes after each module will be open-book and taken online.  The quizzes will be worth 10 points each and will represent primarily material from that given module, although sometimes comprehensive information (previous modules) will be included.  Quizzes cannot be reopened once they are submitted.  Instructors review every quiz and test within 48 hours after it has been submitted in order to make any necessary grading adjustments (e.g. Blackboard may count off for a small spelling error that instructors would accept).  If you have a question about what you missed on a quiz or exam, and 48 hours have passed since you took it, email your instructor.  Your instructor will tell you what to review based on your quiz answers.

The midterm and final will be administered by ProctorU.  Both exams will be comprehensive and will measure general understanding of medical terminology and word-building skills, as well as meeting the objectives for each module.  A study guide will be provided before the midterm and final, stressing the most important word lists and concepts.  The midterm will be 50 questions (multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank and the Final will be 75 questions (multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank).  Both exams will be timed (2 hours).  Exams are closed-book and no communication devices are allowed.

Discussion Board Posts:

Discussion questions cover interesting current events or materials that contribute to a deeper understanding of key concepts and allow you to interact with your classmates and the instructor. There are a total of four required discussion questions throughout the quarter that constitute 12 points each – about 10% of your final grade. Most of the discussion questions are designed to accompany particular chapters (see specific discussion questions for more information). Each question will require you to conduct internet research, read additional materials (a short journal or magazine article), visit a specific webpage, OR view a short video. Then you will write a response following the guidelines in the assignment.

To earn full credit: you will need to post a response, respond to the original posts of at least two other students, and then contribute to an ongoing discussion. For special cases where one or two students are accelerating faster through the course, the instructor will participate in the discussion so that everyone has the opportunity to interact.

Discussion Question Guidelines:

1. Read the assignment carefully so that you are familiar with the materials that you need to cover and how to craft your post.
2. Respect each other’s ideas, feelings, and experience. Some of the questions involve areas of disagreement. Expect your classmates to have different opinions.
3. Use proper writing style. Correct spelling and sentence structure are expected just as if you were writing a regular paper. Use spell check and grammar check before you submit.
4. Write your posting in a word document! That way you can save a copy and use spell check and grammar check.
5. Cite the sources that you use to write your response. Follow the AMA guidelines.
6. Avoid posting large blocks of text. Break your writing into paragraphs and use a space between paragraphs to make your posting easier to read online.
7. Subscribe to the discussion so that you get email updates when there is activity.
8. Use the “reply” button rather than the “compose” button when responding to someone else’s post.
9. When responding to a classmate, address them by name.
10. Do not use postings such as “I agree,” “I don’t know either,” or “ditto.” They do not add to the discussion, take up space on the Discussions, and will not be counted.
11. Everyone benefits from an active discussion. Check back in frequently to see what others are saying.
12. Plan your time carefully. You will need to give your classmates time to respond to your postings. This is an asynchronous class where students will be in different points of the class.

 

Grade	Total Points Accrued	Grade Percent	Grade Point Average (GPA)
A	410-438	94-100%	4.00
A-	392-409	90-93%	3.75
B+	379-391	87-89%	3.50
B	366-378	84-86%	3.00
B-	348-365	80-83%	2.75
C+	335-347	77-79%	2.50
C	322-334	74-76%	2.00
C-	304-321	70-73%	1.75
D	278-303	64-69%	1.00
F	0-277	00-63%	0.00