Suffixes are more important than they might seem.
If you mix up the medical terms jejunostomy and jejunectomy as a surgeon, you might remove part of the person’s small bowel (the jejunum) when what you were supposed to do was just put a tube into it.
EXTRA CREDIT: At the end of this chapter, we’ll have a one-word quiz. You’ll be presented with the medical mouthful of a term known as endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, which is a relatively common gastrointestinal procedure. If you can figure out what it means, you can feel confident that you paid attention during this chapter. You can then consider yourself to be a medical terminology pro.
