Chapter 3 The Digestive System 89 Intern Experience Evan Walker, an intern with Gratz Urgent Care Clinic, is working with Dr. Emily Stomack this week. Evan accompanies Dr. Stomack to exam room 3, where a nervous, young female patient is waiting with her mother. Evan and Dr. Stomack learn that the patient, Sue, had the lead role in her high school play. Too nervous to eat before the performance, she skipped dinner. After the play, Sue was very hungry, so her mother took Sue and her friend to the Brickhouse, a new restaurant in town. All three gobbled down the deluxe burger special and turkey noodle soup. When Sue arrived home, she took her dog for a walk. While walking the dog, Sue suddenly felt like something was caught in her throat. She had diffi culty swallowing, and the sensation would not go away. A few hours later, the symptoms persisted, so Sue’s mother suggested that she make an appointment with their family doctor fi rst thing the next morning. Sue is experiencing a problem with her diges- tive system, the body system that breaks down food and converts it into the “fuel” that the body needs for physical and cellular processes. To help you understand what is happening to Sue, this chapter will present word elements (combining forms, prefi xes, and suff ixes) that make up medi- cal terminology related to the digestive system. As you progress through this book, you will see many word parts that are also used in medical terms related to other body systems. Before you begin this chapter, take some time to review the strategies presented in chapter 1 for analyzing medical terms. Reviewing these strat- egies will help you understand and recall the word elements and defi nitions of medical terms that you are about to learn, as well as those you learned previously. After you have learned the medical terms presented in this chapter, you will practice ana- lyzing patient chart notes. Accurate interpreta- tion of these chart notes will demonstrate that you have a solid understanding of medical ter- minology related to the digestive system. Let’s begin our study with a brief overview of the anatomy and physiology of the digestive system.