Abstract

ARAUJO C, Juan Carlos. REFLECTIONS ON CURRENT MEDICAL LANGUAGE: THE EPONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS. THE REASONS OF ITS EXISTENCE AND THE MAIN PROBLEMS THAT RAISE ITS USE. Biosalud [online]. 2017, vol.16, n.1, pp.93-104. ISSN 1657-9550.  https://doi.org/10.17151/biosa.2017.16.1.10.

Medical language, like all scientific language, does not pursue aesthetic, creative, leisure and recreational purposes as would be the case in literary language, but informative, educational and communication purposes. Eponyms and the different types of abbreviations (abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols) have been part of the language of humanity for over twenty centuries and are especially abundant in the languages for both specialties in medicine, and other sciences. On the common and popular language, these elements have been part of the language since ancient times, and are especially abundant in the medical-scientific languages. Normally are used as a resource to honor, to save time and save space, when its content is perceived well, notoriously it reveals a saving in medical communication; not to use them, in each case would have to make a relatively large exposure or description of the disease or of the sign in question. However, they can cause communication problems between professionals of different levels of care, due to their imprecision and their lack of international equivalence, which may lead to confusing the reality they are trying to describe since the same term or abbreviation could have different meanings, which can lead to misinterpretations with potentially serious consequences. This article discusses the reasons for their existence which define their construction and uses, problems of its use in medical scientific communication at present are also described.

Keywords : eponymous; abbreviations; acronyms; medical language; reason; existence problems.

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