In the pursuit of fidelity and equivalence at the word level a translator must face numerous problems. This article provides a contribution to the issue of handling abbreviations and acronyms in medical translation, which are one of the most problematic lexical groups. The article deals with the translation of medical terminology, especially neologisms, abbreviations and acronyms that are an objective translational problem that can cause serious difficulties despite the professional interpreter's skills. The most effective solution of this problem is to perceive not only the structural peculiarities of medical terms as well as abbreviations and acronyms, but also to realize a segment of reality that is in the process of perception and processing by an interpreter when appropriate interpretation of a neologism or abbreviation is carried out. The procedures for handling shortened forms provided here are universal and can be applied to all languages.It needs to be pointed out at the beginning that the English words abbreviation and acronym are differently defined in various dictionaries and scholarly papers, leading to misunderstanding and chaos in nomenclature. As a matter of fact, not all of them recognize the lexical opposition of those two notions at all. Because of such a divergence, it is necessary to state which definition is adopted here.