Legal and Medical Terminology
Why terminology is graded
Legal and medical terms are where phonetic guessing shows. The exam tests spelling, capitalization, and correct form across Latin and Anglo-French legal terms, procedural vocabulary, anatomy, diagnoses, and drug names.
High-yield clusters
- Latin and law French: res ipsa loquitur, voir dire, allocution, nunc pro tunc, pro se, sua sponte, prima facie, guardian ad litem, de minimis.
- Procedure and torts: interrogatories, deposition upon oral examination, proximate cause, comparative negligence, contribution, subrogation, punitive damages.
- Medicine: herniated nucleus pulposus, myocardial infarction, cervical and lumbar spine, L4-L5 and C5-C6, electromyogram, arthroscopy, dura mater, hypertension, diabetes mellitus.
- Pharmacology: oxycodone versus OxyContin, hydrocodone, gabapentin, and the difference between a generic and a brand name.
Worked example
Dictation: "The plaintiff suffered a herniated nucleus pulposus at L4-L5." Output keeps nucleus pulposus lower case (it is descriptive anatomy, not an eponym), keeps L4-L5 hyphenated and capitalized, and does not "correct" it to disc. Reasoning: the reporter transcribes what is said; a lay witness may say disc, a physician will say nucleus pulposus, and each is reported as spoken.
Traps
Per se written per say; dura mater written dura matter; a drug name guessed from sound instead of confirmed on the record; ei/ie reversals in eponyms such as Epstein-Barr; inconsistent Latin plurals (foramina, septa).