xenoMED - NOMENCLATURE !!!

MUSINGS OVER FORUM FORMATION

I don’t know how the people start working and what exactly the motivational point behind that particular point is. May be there is something very important point –CRITICAL POINT!!! We do use a field work in our undergraduate level where we need to do a critical analysis for a topic where we are supposed to find a critical point that clicks the problem and will also lead to a thread of solution!!! I assume there may be something like that which rotates and motivates a person to work for it. There are some obvious regions we all get tuned in with like money, fame, ego, attention and so on.

A couple of weeks ago I had been given a name of website - “Medical Discussion Forum” and review it. The people who have started it wanted my feedback, suggestion and input for them to go ahead and improve. These are the young medical students who are energetic, full of zeal and interest as well as enough determination to work. I really appreciate their way ahead and work they have done. But we all know that everybody can start many thing but few can give long, unparalleled and continuous support as per the demand of time and users. That’s big challenge especially if we are talking about the e-world. So everybody who wants to work in this field should be better prepared before they jump in it.

Many a time, I have been asked and shown interest about my status as well as involvement in xenomed from my friends, seniors, juniors and others. I don’t have anything to say and neither is it an important issue for me. It is a nice forum, excellent community and better interaction of our own profession. So they are the utmost important things to consider and it has them all. Hundreds of people may have left it and another a couple of hundreds might have joined. Some of them got what they were looking for while few of them just bumped on it on web surfing. It is natural phenomenon.


xenoMED - NOMENCLATURE

It was October, 2005 (sorry I forgot exact date day and week), I suddenly got a call early in the morning from Dr Angel. As far as I remember it was Saturday. He refused to talk over (saying it an important issue) the telephone so I rushed to his room. There I came to know that our forum had serious problems. We had been thinking of registering a separate forum for discussion for medicos because we had incorporated the forum into the website of “Nepal Drug Review” i.e. http://www.ndr.com.np/ and the forum’s name was “NDR Discussion Forum”. So, on the very day, my job was to come out with a new better and meaningful name for the forum we would register!!!

I generated about 130 names (as I vaguely recall that) and Dr Angel searched online – most of them already existed!!! Few of the names were matching and one of them was “XENOMED”. This is the name I liked and wanted approval from Dr Angel. He is different kind of personality! He calculated so many things, numbers, fingers ---------oh GOD!!! In fact that seemed weird for me. He came out another name which was on third or fourth on my priority near MATCHING for him!!! I made some jokes and mockery of him but he was damn serious. When I was busy formulating the names and interpreting better combination, he was teaching half a dozen of his students ( first or second year medical students from KMC) on how to put IV drug, IV line and IM injections – I don’t know what the hell was he doing there in his flat to these (may be) over smart and over enthusiastic medical students ( may be out of other hundred students from that batch). I don’t know why they needed it at that time and whether they recalled and performed these skills during their clinical rotation after more than a couple of years later. Thanks to Dr Angel too for all those unnecessary, untimely and untargeted teaching enthusiasm! Are you doing all these nowadays too? Hopefully you have been mature teacher by now. By the way, I don’t know the students.

Probin Shrestha (KMC’s medical student – sorry Probin I forgot your batch and all that. I’m sure you will recall when you happen to read it.) was running up and down there – I guess he used to stay in one of the apartment of the same house. He was also suggesting few names and was curious about it. When I interpreted the meaning of “XENOMED” - he liked it !!! Dr Angel happen to be in minority - out of us THREE !!! [ XENO (s) – GREEK word = "foreigner," "stranger," “outsider” and MED = “Medicine” ]. We all are studying allopathic medicine and what we use as drugs are not the products of our body “in situ”. They are foreign body to our body. Therefore “XENOMED” seemed new name, realistic name and for me catchy as well. I went for it. Probin liked it. And Dr Angel did approve it (despite his many omens going for and against it). So we came out with “www.xenomed.com” !!!

The NDR Discussion forum has been closed by now. The link of this webpage has been put there. The history is important. Few days prior of that problem, there was a great scandal in the medical community of Nepal which was put into NDR Discussion forum. There are many events which happened after then and we are regularly updating here in xenomed. Dr Angel has worked so much and other people like Rajeev – XEMED Co Admin( based in Hiedelberg, Germany) and many others ( the list is too long to put here). So far I know there are about half a dozen discussion forums (medical) registered and being run in Nepal right now. That’s definitely a good development. Keep it up fellow MEDS ! Good work!


ULTIMATELY

We have thousands of members registered and many supporting staff working in the forum. We have members around the globe – far and wide coverage! Some of the forum’s supporting staff are involved and has been recognized in an international level – Professionally! The forum has brought many brilliant brains together and has given platform to interact. That’s the whole motto. I’m 100% sure that the involvement, work and exposure from xenomed has helped them a lot. I know we harbor different attitude and have different kind of opinions regarding the issue. Argues can swing and can be made to swing in 180 degree as per a person’s perception but reality is reality. A couple of months ago, xenomed was featured in Lancet Student that too by Rhona McDonald in RHONA’s BLOG!!! That’s the highest and most revered recognition we got. I know users are the most important but if there were no users they wouldn’t cover it. That’s a recognition of USERS, FORUM and the supporting people.

Thank you all – USERS and Dr Angel !!!



Best wishes,
Mati (xenomed Advisor)