Veterinary Medical Terminology and Anatomy
Overview
The Veterinary Medical Terminology and Anatomy domain tests whether you can read a medical record, decode an unfamiliar word, and place a finding in the correct body location. The AVA exam sticks to working vocabulary - directional terms, combining forms, and the major body systems of the dog, cat, horse, and cow - rather than obscure trivia.
Directional terms
- Cranial/caudal: toward the head/toward the tail. Rostral replaces cranial on the head itself.
- Dorsal/ventral: toward the spine/toward the belly. On the paw, palmar (front limb) and plantar (hind limb) mean toward the ground surface.
- Proximal/distal: toward/away from the body. Medial/lateral: toward the midline/away from it. Superficial/deep.
- The body planes are median, sagittal, transverse, and dorsal.
Decoding combining forms
Read a term from the suffix backward. Gastr/o = stomach, enter/o = intestine, -itis = inflammation, so gastroenteritis is inflammation of the stomach and small intestine. Nephr/o = kidney and -megaly = enlargement, giving nephromegaly. Cyst/o = urinary bladder and -centesis = surgical puncture, so cystocentesis is a needle puncture of the bladder.
Worked example
The record reads: right cephalic catheter placed; 3 cm subcutaneous mass on the left lateral thorax, cranial to the last rib. Reasoning: cephalic tells you the vein runs on the front surface of the forelimb, so the catheter is in the front leg on the animal's right. Cranial to the last rib places the mass toward the head from that rib, and lateral thorax places it on the side wall of the chest - not under the belly and not on the midline.
Traps
- -ectomy (removal), -otomy (incision into), and -stomy (an opening left in place) are not interchangeable.
- Left and right always mean the patient's left and right, which matters on radiographs and in surgical notes.
- Brady- is slow, tachy- is fast; hypo- is under, hyper- is over.