The word 医学院 is formed by combining three meaningful characters: 医 (yī), meaning "medicine" or "healing", establishes the core field; 学 (xué), meaning "study" or "learning", is added to specify it as an academic discipline; finally, 院 (yuàn), meaning "courtyard" or "institution", is appended to indicate the physical or organizational entity where this study takes place. Together, they sequentially build the concept from the general domain (medicine), to the activity (study of it), to the place (institute for it), resulting in the compound meaning "medical school" or "college of medicine".