Ten years ago on this day, I registered my current domain name, rk.md, through the country code top-level domain for Moldova. At that time, this site was running WordPress 2.7 using the original TinyMCE visual editor. I had no idea what it would become throughout my medical training.
Although I had been blogging for several years before that on my first “real” domain name (rishi-kumar.com), RK.MD was an opportunity for me to begin cataloging my journey as a pre-med through the medical school application process, medical school, residency, and beyond.
I spent much of today reflecting on the last decade of posts – milestones in my training, important events in history, my technological pursuits, responding to countless comments/emails from the readership I’ve been humbled to garner, and how my perspectives on medicine, technology, and life have changed over time. It seriously brought a smile to my face when I read posts from 2, 4, even 10 years ago that I actually wrote once upon a time.
To commemorate this 10-year anniversary of my domain, I’ve given the site a new look with an emphasis on even more simplification and security. It’s fitting that this post is also the first on RK.MD to be written in WordPress 5.0’s new Gutenberg editor – software that is supposed to pave the way for the next decade of content creation and management for much of the Internet. 😎
Delving into web programming was something I did with no prior training. Spending countless hours perusing Internet forums and YouTube videos to learn the basics of HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript, I realized that my interests were in optimization – writing more efficient code and utilizing advanced compression algorithms to minimize the overhead of numerous scripts, stylesheets, images, and media became an obsession. Maintaining RK.MD allowed me to exercise this obsession over the last decade. 😀
I want to thank you all for the thoughtful messages and words of encouragement. With each passing day, it seems that healthcare professionals on social media are becoming more obsessed with giveaways and discount codes rather than advancing the collective knowledge base and spurring creative thinking that can actually help patient care. I’m more committed than ever to sharing my experiences and tidbits of knowledge to promote free, open-access medical education. 🙂
Congratulations! I’ve neen following you on Ig for priceless medical posts and now I have to explore the blog as well. 🙂 thank you and all the best
Thank you so much for the kind words, Sandra! 🙂