What is the difference in atelectasis and collapsed lung?!
Question: Isn't the first a smaller version of the second?
Answers: Isn't the first a smaller version of the second?
Atelectasis is the medical term for a collapsed lung. It doesn't necessarily mean that the entire lung is collapsed, you can have partial atelectasis too.
The definition of this seems to differ with the lecturer explaining it. Some use the terms interchangeably to mean a collapsed lung. However, my understanding is that atelactasis is the collapse (deflation) of the aveoli. Whereas a collapsed lung is, as you suggest, the actual collapse (partial or complete) of the lung itself.
A few sites online seem to back this up