Illustrated Glossary of Hand and Reconstructive Surgery

This short dictionary has been compiled to help deal with the inconsistencies of medical terminology, particularly in the area of reconstructive surgery. It is aimed at physicians who lack time to read all the material on new techniques and specialized terms.

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Each year about 200,000 medical publications appear and it is completely impossible for the single physician to keep in touch with them all. This number is a reflection of the increasing specialization which has occurred, hence much of the literature is only comprehensible to the expert. As medical knowledge becomes more detailed and complicated there is a proportional increase in the use of specialized expressions and the habit of using abbreviations especially for complex syndromes causes further confusion. Although International Specialist Associations are trying to standardize terminology, abbreviations and definitions there are language difficulties. In addition English is increasingly replacing Latin and older articles become unreadable for modern generations of doctors. Old and new medical discoveries are usually named after the originator as a form of acknowledgement, for example Froments's sign, Crouzon's disease and Cutler Plastic which unfortunately leads to further confusion as this usage is not internationally uniform.