📖 Glossary: Talk Like a Doctor

Real medical words, plainly explained. Doctor-language is mostly Latin and Greek LEGO bricks — learn the bricks and you can decode words you've never seen.

🧱 The LEGO bricks

hypo- = too little · hyper- = too much
brady- = slow · tachy- = fast
a- / an- = without · -pnea = breathing · -cardia = heart
neo- = new · natal = birth · -ologist = expert in
-itis = inflammation · -pathy = disease · -gram = picture or recording

So a neonatologist is a new-birth-expert, bradycardia is slow-heart, apnea is without-breathing, and tachypnea — a word you haven't even studied — is… fast breathing. See? Decoded.

The people

Neonatologist: A doctor specializing in newborns — especially sick and premature ones. First pediatrics training, then extra years of NICU training.
NICU nurse: The person at the bedside hour after hour. Nurses catch most problems first and do most of the hands-on care.
Respiratory therapist: The breathing-machine specialist: runs ventilators and CPAP and helps at every delivery of a fragile baby.
Attending / fellow / resident: The doctor ranks: the attending leads, the fellow is training to be a neonatologist, the resident is earlier in training. They walk rounds together every day.

The babies

Neonate: A baby in the first month of life.
Gestational age: How many weeks the baby grew in the womb before birth. Full-term is about 40 weeks; “premature” means born before 37.
Preemie / micro-preemie: A baby born early; “micro-preemie” usually means born before ~26 weeks or under ~800 grams.
LBW / VLBW / ELBW: Low (under 2500 g), very low (under 1500 g), and extremely low (under 1000 g) birth weight.
Corrected age: Age counted from the due date instead of the birthday. A 3-month-old born 2 months early has a corrected age of 1 month — used for judging growth and milestones.
Viability: The earliest a baby can possibly survive outside the womb — currently around 22–24 weeks, the very edge of what medicine can support.

Machines & tools

Isolette (incubator): The clear warm-and-humid bed with portholes. Lesson 1.
Pulse oximeter: The glowing foot band measuring oxygen saturation with light. Lesson 2.
Cardiorespiratory monitor: The screen tracking every heartbeat and breath via chest leads. Lesson 3.
Arterial line / umbilical catheter: Thin tubes in blood vessels (including the belly-button vessels!) for live blood pressure and painless blood samples. Lesson 4.
CPAP: Steady air pressure through nose prongs that keeps lungs partly inflated. Lesson 5.
Ventilator: The machine that delivers measured breaths through a windpipe tube. Lesson 5.
NG tube & syringe pump: Nose-to-stomach milk delivery, slow and precise. Lesson 6.
PICC line: A long ultra-thin IV threaded to near the heart, for TPN and medicines. Lesson 6.
Bili lights: Blue phototherapy lights that dismantle bilirubin through the skin. Lesson 7.
Ultrasound / X-ray / echo: The see-inside tools: sound-pictures, shadow-pictures, and heart-movies. Lesson 8.

Body science

Thermoregulation: Keeping body temperature steady. Preemies can't; isolettes do it for them.
Brown fat: Heat-generating fat that newborns use instead of shivering.
Hemoglobin: The oxygen-carrying protein that makes blood red — brighter red when loaded.
Saturation (SpO₂): The percentage of hemoglobin carrying oxygen right now.
Alveoli: The lungs' hundreds of millions of microscopic air balloons.
Surfactant: The soap-like coating that stops wet alveoli from sticking shut. Missing in preemies; givable as medicine.
Bilirubin: Yellow leftover from recycling old red blood cells; causes jaundice when it piles up.
Fontanelle: The soft spot — the skull's unclosed window, used for brain ultrasounds.
Ductus arteriosus: The womb-era vessel detouring blood past the unused lungs; supposed to close after birth.
Perfusion: Blood actually reaching the tissues and making its deliveries.

Conditions

Apnea of prematurity: Breathing pauses because the brain's breathing center is immature. Treated with touch, caffeine, and CPAP.
Bradycardia: Too-slow heart rate — apnea's frequent partner (“A's and B's”).
RDS: Respiratory distress syndrome: the sticky-lung disease from missing surfactant.
BPD (bronchopulmonary dysplasia): Lung scarring and injury some preemies develop after long breathing support and oxygen — a big reason the NICU weans support as fast as safely possible.
ROP (retinopathy of prematurity): Abnormal eye-vessel growth in preemies, worsened by too much oxygen; can cause blindness; watched for with eye exams.
Jaundice / hyperbilirubinemia: Yellowing from bilirubin buildup. Usually mild; treated with light when high.
Kernicterus: Permanent brain damage from extreme untreated bilirubin. Preventable with checks and treatment.
NEC (necrotizing enterocolitis): The feared gut disease of preemies. Breast milk and careful feeding lower the risk.
IVH (intraventricular hemorrhage): Brain bleed of very premature babies, graded 1–4, screened for with head ultrasounds.
PDA (patent ductus arteriosus): The womb-detour vessel that failed to close.
Sepsis: Infection spreading through the bloodstream. Preemies' immune systems are weak, so NICUs fight germs with obsessive handwashing — the single best germ-defense ever invented.