What is the definition of medaholic? The term “medaholic” was created by combining the word medicine with the -holic suffix, to imitate other -holic ending words (alcoholic, workaholic, shopaholic). The ending holic usually suggests an addiction, compulsive need, or love for whatever subject matter. Therefore, medaholic is a person who is obsessed or focused on medicine.
This can be seen in two ways, positively and negatively. A medaholic can be a person who loves medicine (not medication). They eat, breathe, dream medicine. They are devoted to their work and their patients. Medaholics are people who have a passion for medicine.
On the contrary, a medaholic can be a person who is consumed by medicine, whose life is dictated by their profession and their patients, leaving little time for themselves. They become out of balance because of medicine. The person is so addicted to medicine that their life consists only of medicine and sleep. Their family, social life and physical health suffers because of their time and energy spent on medicine.
Looking at the two contrasting views, I believe the term “medaholic” effectively describes the people in medicine. Medaholics are people who care about healthcare and find their work rewarding, yet are also victims of their work.
I have chosen this name for my blog because I want to explore both these sides of medicine, the good and the bad. Furthermore, many of my site viewers are also medaholics themselves, including the neurotic pre-med, the uncertain medical student, the overworked resident and attending physicians. Patients can also be medaholics, especially when their minds become occupied with their illness and disease and their world soon degrades completely into medicine.
Why did you change your old blog name?
My former blog name was Open Source MD – the idea was that medicine can benefit from being open source and in an environment where information and ideas are shared. However, I decided to change my blog name for several reasons.
- It was Too Long - opensourcemd isn’t easy to remember. It’s a long phrase prone to typos and memory loss. Furthermore, I wanted a site where the name/brand was short and memorable.
- No Available Domain Name - when I decided to make the shift to hosting my own blog, opensourcemd.com was already taken. Getting a .com domain name that was short and catchy was important to me. So after several days of brainstorming and searching for names (using nameboy), I decided on medaholic.
- Being Unique – an added bonus was the word medaholic was original. It returned only a few hits on google. The term had no connotations associated with it. I could define the word as I liked and what it would mean.
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