NURSING

A large part of beginning the study of anatomy and physiology is learning the specialised words that are used. This new terminology may seem daunting but the challenge lies in its unfamiliarity rather than its difficulty of comprehension. You must expect to encounter a lot of new words and be prepared to learn them for your study. Many of the words contain information as the words are constructed with a prefix and a suffix or a stem that identifies the word as referring to a specific part of anatomy or physiology. This sometimes makes the words rather long or unusual.

You should know what the anatomical position of the body is and in what direction the transverse, sagittal & coronal planes of the body lie. Directional terms such as: proximal/distal; deep/superficial; superior/inferior; lateral/medial; anterior/posterior; and caudal/cephalic allow the location of one anatomical feature to be placed relative to another. The dorsal and ventral body cavities are located on different sides of the body and contain different organs. For ease of communication, the abdomen is divided into nine regions: right hypochondriac, epigastric, left hypochondriac, right lumbar, umbilical, left lumbar, right inguinal, hypogastric (or pubic), left inguinal regions. You should know the difference between physiology and anatomy and the definitions of metabolism, anabolism, and catabolism.