Principle and Technique for Refinement and Creation of Medical Terminology: Focus on Dermatological Terminologies

Eun, Hee Chul

Abstract

In the Korean language, half of the words originated from Chinese characters, while the other half are from native origins. Since the introduction of Hangul (Korean alphabet consists of 24 characters) with policy by the government after the second-world war, it has dramatically decreased the illiteracy rates within a relatively short period of time in our society. However, since the Japanese colonial period, many professional terminologies which still have its origins from Chinese characters are being used until today. The major issue is that professional terminologies including medical ones are quite difficult for common people to understand, despite their level of education. One aspect is that professional people are using too many sophisticated Chinese characters beyond the limits imposed by the government (1,800 common Chinese characters). In addition, Chinese characters expressed in Hangul are sometimes difficult to understand because of the same pronunciation from different Chinese characters. Since the introduction of medical insurance by the Korean government, most people in our society have benefited cheap medical care. Therefore, easy communication between doctors and patients are becoming mandatory, which is the rationale of developing ideal Korean medical terminology to answer the society's needs. The Korean Medical Association has encouraged the developments of simple and elegant medical terminologies for a very long time, and dramatic refinements of them have been made for the past 20 years. However, in reality, the majority of terminologies are still not unified because of strong conflicts between conservatism and liberalism toward the changes. The author recently published a monograph with an anatomist and a linguist, which contains the principles and techniques for refinement and creation in order to make easy and elegant medical terminologies with plenty of examples. From the article, the author intended to introduce many examples including conflicts solving strategies in the field of dermatology.