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Medicine vocabulary · Treatments and Procedures

Recovery

Meaning in medicine, with examples

/rɪˈkʌvəri/nounCore term

In medicine, recovery means: The process of getting better after an illness, injury or operation; also the area where patients wake up after anesthesia.

In Turkish: iyileşme, toparlanma, uyanma odası

How it is used

Doctors talk about a full, quick, slow or uneventful recovery, and patients ask 'How long will recovery take?'. In hospitals 'recovery' (the recovery room, or PACU in the US) is where patients go straight after theatre. The verb is 'recover from'.

Example sentences

  1. She made a full recovery and went back to work after six weeks.

  2. He's still in recovery; the nurses will call when he's back on the ward.

Common collocations

  • make a full recovery
  • speedy recovery
  • recovery time
  • recovery room
  • uneventful recovery
  • surgeryTreatment in which a doctor cuts into the body to repair, remove or replace something; also the medical specialty that does this.
  • rehabilitationTreatment and support that help a person regain strength, skills and independence after an illness, injury or operation.
  • prognosisA doctor's opinion about how an illness is likely to develop and what the chances of recovery or survival are.
  • follow-upA later appointment or check to see how a patient is doing after treatment, a test result or a hospital stay.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Treatments and Procedures

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.