Hi everyone. Today's lesson is all about microbiology. And if you recall back when we were learning our medical terms, we learned that ology means study of.
And so today we will be studying the smallest form of life that is only detected underneath the microscope. Microorganisms are going to be everywhere in the environment, usually cause no harm, and there are actually microorganisms that can be beneficial or good for us. As a medical assistant, it's going to be important that we have basic knowledge on pathogens that are harmful versus pathogens that are harmless. We need to learn how to prevent and spread disease.
And then we have a responsibility in taking our knowledge, sharing it with our patients through patient education, and hopefully helping them understand how to prevent the spread of disease. Here we have a term that's non-pathogens. And non-pathogens are, they do not cause disease under normal conditions. Now we have normal flora. And normal flora is that good bacteria that I mentioned before that helps the body maintain what's homeostasis.
Now what we know in homeostasis is it's represented by the scale, it's body balance. And when all your systems are functioning as they should, you feel your best, your body is in a state of homeostasis. Normal flora helps with that because it's bacteria that lives in and on the body and it assists with that form of the body remaining in balance.
Now, understand that normal flora can cause infection if it invades other body areas or has a level of overgrowth. Typically, it's found in oral cavities and also within the gastrointestinal tract, as well as on the skin. And you can see some examples here in the photograph as to what normal flora would look like if we were to view this underneath the microscope.