I can’t remember how my doctor said it but I think of it as ro-SU-vastatin. The automated voice at Walgreens calls it rosu-VAST-atin. Is that voice programmed to pronounce drugs correctly?
Dennis
Take the easy way out: call it “Crestor”, the brand name. You might make friends and it sure is easier.
Wikipedia agrees with your choice of stressed syllable. It’s also how I would pronounce it, but it’s not like I’m an authority. The class of drugs is called STAtins, though, and the robovoice messes up that part of the word, so that’s additional evidence, I think.
When I first started taking Atorvastatin, I pronounced it atorVAStatin. Then I realized that it’s a statin, so I corrected to atorvaSTAtin. The automated voice is wrong.
Wikipedia has the emphasis on the second syllable, see pronunciation at the right side just below the structure.
Given that it’s a statin, the syllable structure is clearly ro-su-va-stat-in, the recording is surely wrong. I think the only two plausible pronunciations would put the primary emphasis on “su”, as your doctor and Wikipedia have it; or secondary empahsis on “su” and primary emphasis on “stat”.
I take the stuff. All the medics I’ve ever talked to or given my med list to pronounce as you wrote above. So that’s about a dozen votes by folks who should know what they’re saying. Though for some of them the “SU” sounds more like “ZU” or a hybrid halfway between s & z.
All automated voice systems mess up complex words unless someone takes the time to manually decompose the word into a phonetic spelling the machine can interpret properly.
In my industry we just get used to the many technical terms the main automated system pronounces badly. Consistently, but badly.