Main description:

The best-selling Dictionary of Medicine has now been extensively revised in this new Second Edition. his comprehensive dictionary now includes 12,500 nearly defined terms.

The focus is on both British and American medical practice, with terms drawn from surgery, general practice, hospital and clinical practice and administration, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and other medicine-related disciplines.

The level of language varies from the technical to the informal, depending on whether the term is one used internally by the medical community or one used in the discourse between medical professionals and patients. Whenever possible, however, the editor has attempted to render definitions in the simplest possible English, so that the Dictionary will be useful for laymen as well as for professionals. Toward this goal of enhancing the clarity of definitions, the editor also identifies parts of speech and offers example sentences that employ the terms. A further feature of the Dictionary is the inclusion of words/terms from common speech, the meanings of which change slightly in medical usage.