Medical notes are written fast, for other clinicians. A discharge summary can hold more shorthand than full words, and a portal message can arrive before anyone has time to explain it. Medical Abbreviation List exists so that a patient, a family member or a new student can look up one abbreviation and understand it in a minute.
What you will find here
- One page per term: each abbreviation, plain word or word part has its own page with the meaning first.
- A real example: every term page shows a line as it would appear in a chart, an order or a label, with the shorthand highlighted.
- Confusions and safety: we show what a term is mixed up with, and we flag shorthand that safety groups ask clinicians to stop writing.
- Tools that stay on your device: the abbreviation finder, the chart note decoder and the terminology quiz run in your browser and store nothing.
Who we are
Medical Abbreviation List is an independent reference written by an editorial team with backgrounds in clinical documentation, nursing education and health writing. We are not a hospital, a clinic or a pharmacy, and we do not give personal medical advice. When a question is about your own care, the right person to ask is your doctor, nurse or pharmacist.
How we stay accurate
Every page is checked against official references before it goes live and reviewed again when guidance changes. Read how we write and our editorial policy for the details, or contact us if you spot something that needs fixing.