15 years later, still curious.

Medical Squid started in 2011.

But its story probably began a little earlier, during my MBBS days at Madurai Medical College.

I was interested in medicine, of course, but also in computers, the internet and the possibilities of putting useful information online. This was a very different internet from the one we know today.

By 2011, when Medical Squid took shape, I had moved into the next phase of my medical journey—residency.

Those were days of medicine, exams, long hours and very little sleep. And somewhere in between was Medical Squid.

There was no startup plan. No funding. No editorial team.

Just an idea, a computer, BSNL broadband and plenty of sleepless nights.

When building a website meant actually building it

Running a WordPress website in those days required a little more patience.

You downloaded WordPress, connected to the server through an FTP client, uploaded hundreds of files, created a database, edited configuration files, installed a theme and hoped everything worked.

Sometimes it didn’t.

Then you searched forums, changed something, broke something else and tried again.

There was something immensely satisfying about finally typing medicalsquid.com into a browser and seeing the website appear.

Today, we can build websites, generate images and even write code by talking to an AI.

In 2011, getting WordPress running properly over a temperamental broadband connection could itself feel like an achievement.

And that was part of the fun.

A website for medical students and young doctors

Early Medical Squid was very different from what I want it to become today.

It wasn’t primarily a medical journal or a place for long academic articles.

It was useful.

We followed the things medical students and young doctors were actually talking about and searching for.

Medical entrance examinations. Results. Counselling. NEET. Court hearings. Changes in rules and regulations.

We shared previous examination papers, freely available for students to practise.

We had online mock tests.

We covered medical and science news when something caught our attention.

And sometimes we simply tried to make information easier to find.

This was before medical education became dominated by apps, subscription platforms, Telegram groups and endless YouTube channels.

If you had something useful, you put it on a website.

Someone found it through Google or Facebook.

And if it helped them, they shared it.

That was social media strategy in 2011.

Result day meant pressing Refresh

There is one experience that people from that era will probably remember immediately.

An important examination result would be announced.

Thousands of medical students would open the official website at almost exactly the same time.

And the server would disappear.

Server unavailable.

Refresh.

Nothing.

Refresh again.

Still nothing.

AIIMS and government websites were not always prepared for the enormous burst of traffic that accompanied important results.

On some of those occasions, Medical Squid mirrored results or important information so that students could access them when the original servers were struggling.

It wasn’t sophisticated.

Someone needed information. We had access to it. So we tried to make it available.

That probably captures the spirit of the original Medical Squid better than anything else.

Then DAMS shared our link

One memory from those years still stands out.

At some point, DAMS shared a Medical Squid link on its Facebook page.

Suddenly, a large number of medical students arrived on our little website.

And shortly afterwards came a warning from the hosting company.

We had hit a usage limit.

Today, with cloud hosting, CDNs and scalable infrastructure, that sounds almost quaint.

Back then, sitting behind a modest shared-hosting account, it felt fantastic.

The website was struggling because people were actually using it.

For something maintained between medical work and sleepless nights, that was enough.

And then life happened

Medicine has a habit of consuming time.

My own journey had begun with MBBS at Madurai Medical College and continued through postgraduate training in psychiatry, including MD Psychiatry at AIIMS New Delhi, followed by DNB Psychiatry.

Over the years, my world increasingly became patients, clinical work, research and teaching. I subsequently pursued an MBA from BITS Pilani, adding another perspective on healthcare, systems and innovation.

I became a psychiatrist and medical teacher.

Medical Squid gradually became quieter.

There wasn’t a particular day when I decided to stop writing.

There was no farewell post.

Life simply became busier.

The sleepless nights continued.

I just wasn’t spending them uploading WordPress files anymore.

But the Squid never completely disappeared

The website remained.

The Facebook page remained.

The Medical Squid Facebook page was created on 9 March 2011, originally under the category of an education website.

Old Medical Squid articles, images and links continued to surface occasionally around the internet.

And every once in a while, I would think about bringing it back.

Then I realised something.

2026 marks 15 years of Medical Squid.

That seemed like a good enough reason.

The internet has changed

Almost everything that surrounded the original Medical Squid has disappeared or transformed.

BSNL broadband became fibre and 5G.

FTP uploads became automated deployments.

Shared hosting became cloud infrastructure.

Facebook pages gave way to Instagram, reels and algorithms.

Previous question papers and mock tests moved into sophisticated medical-learning platforms.

And information, once relatively difficult to find, became almost unlimited.

Then came artificial intelligence.

Today, an AI system can search, summarise, translate and generate medical information in seconds.

Which creates a strange reversal.

In 2011, the challenge was finding information.

In 2026, the challenge is deciding which information matters.

And that is where I think the new Medical Squid has a role.

Medical Squid, 2026

I don’t want to bring Medical Squid back simply to create another medical-news website.

There are already plenty of those.

The new Medical Squid will still talk about what’s happening in medicine, but I want it to spend more time asking what it means.

A new study has been published.

Fine.

Is it a good study?

A new diagnostic technology has arrived.

Interesting.

Does it actually improve diagnosis?

Everyone is discussing a new treatment.

How strong is the evidence?

AI can perform another medical task.

Does that make doctors better—or merely faster?

These are much more interesting questions.

Medical Squid will explore clinical medicine, evidence-based practice, psychiatry and neuroscience, medical education, research, medical law and ethics, AI and healthcare technology, healthcare innovation, careers and global opportunities for doctors.

There will also be room for subjects that don’t fit neatly into any category.

Medicine is too interesting to restrict ourselves unnecessarily.

Not everything needs to sound academic

One thing I would like to retain from the original Medical Squid is its informality.

There are journals for journal articles.

Medical Squid should be a place where doctors and healthcare professionals can explain, question, discuss and occasionally disagree.

Some articles will be detailed and heavily referenced.

Others may simply be an experienced doctor explaining something they have learnt after years of practice.

Both can be valuable.

Good medical writing doesn’t have to sound complicated.

It needs to be accurate, useful and worth reading.

Write for Medical Squid

The original Medical Squid grew because people shared useful things.

I would like the new one to work the same way.

We welcome guest articles from medical students, residents, doctors, psychologists, researchers and other healthcare professionals.

You don’t need to be an established writer.

You could write about a clinical question that keeps coming up in practice.

Explain an interesting paper.

Discuss something that needs to change in medical education.

Write about medical law or ethics.

Explore AI or a new healthcare technology.

Share an unusual career path.

Tell younger doctors something you wish someone had told you.

Or simply write about something in medicine that you find fascinating.

If you have something useful to say, we would like to hear it.

Guest articles, ideas and collaborations:
medicalsquid@gmail.com

You can also find Medical Squid on Facebook.

About Me

I’m Dr. Srinivas Rajkumar T, a psychiatrist, clinician and medical teacher based in Chennai.

My medical journey began at Madurai Medical College, where I completed my MBBS, followed by postgraduate training and MD Psychiatry at AIIMS New Delhi. I subsequently completed DNB Psychiatry and an MBA from BITS Pilani.

My interests today extend beyond psychiatry into neuroscience, medical education, evidence-based medicine, healthcare technology, artificial intelligence, medical ethics and healthcare innovation.

In many ways, Medical Squid has simply grown alongside those interests.

The person writing it in 2026 is obviously different from the young doctor experimenting with WordPress over BSNL broadband in 2011.

But I recognise the curiosity.

2011 → 2026

Fifteen years ago, Medical Squid was about exam updates, court hearings, old question papers, free mock tests, crashed result servers, FTP uploads and sleepless nights.

Today, the subjects may be evidence, AI, neuroscience, technology and the future of healthcare.

But the underlying idea hasn’t changed very much.

Find something interesting.

Understand it.

Share something useful.

Medical Squid | 2011–2026

15 years later, still curious.

Medicine. Evidence. People. Possibilities.