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Medical Terminology · Chapter 6

The Ortho Chart Reader

Orthopedic procedures are the same handful of roots wearing different suffixes, so the suffix alone tells you whether the note describes a look, a measurement, a removal, a repair or a fusion. Turn one knee through every suffix in the operating theatre, then open a real note in the chart and expand every abbreviation — deciding as you go which ones are safe as written and which ones are ambiguous enough to spell out.
Attach a suffix to arthr/o and watch the joint