MD

PluralMDs

1. 1
   nounUSinitialism

   Initialism of medical doctor.

   Maria Chen, MD, leads the hospital's cardiology team.

   The clinic is hiring two MDs and a nurse practitioner this fall.

   Note

   The person the letters name usually follows a name, set off by commas: "James Lee, MD, gastroenterologist," as Linda Melone wrote in 2015. Used as an ordinary noun it counts practitioners, with the plural MDs, so a clinic hires two MDs. This reading is US usage. In Britain the same letters point to a research degree rather than to the working physician.

2. 2
   proper nounabbreviation

   Abbreviation of Maryland.

   The package was shipped from Annapolis, MD, last Tuesday.

   The return address read Silver Spring, MD 20910.

   Note

   Two capital letters that stand only for the state, never for the other Marylands: the town in New York, the Newham neighborhood in London, the village in Monmouthshire. It sits after a city name in addresses and datelines, set off by commas: Annapolis, MD, or Baltimore, MD. The state itself was named for Queen Mary, queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland.

3. 3
   nounUSinitialism

   Initialism of doctorate of medicine.

   After completing her MD at Johns Hopkins, she began a surgical residency.

   The university offers a combined MD and PhD program for research-minded students.

   Note

   The M comes before the D because the letters follow the New Latin medicinae doctor, "doctor of medicine," which names the field first. Here MD is the qualification rather than the person: one completes an MD, or pairs it with a PhD in a combined program. In US usage it is simply the medical degree, which is why the same letters mean something different in British usage.

4. 4
   nounabbreviation

   Abbreviation of managing director.

   The MD announced a hiring freeze at the quarterly meeting.

   Investors pressed the MD for details about the proposed merger.

   Note

   The office behind the letters is the chief executive of a limited company, so the abbreviation belongs to the language of boardrooms and company reports. It works as a title (the MD announced a hiring freeze) and as an ordinary countable noun with the plural MDs. A business setting keeps it apart from the physician, who shares both the letters and the plural.

5. 5
   nounBritishcountable

   A higher research doctorate in medicine; in British usage, an advanced degree awarded to qualified physicians for original research, also called Doctor of Medicine.

   She was awarded an MD by the University of Edinburgh for her cardiology research.

   Unlike his American colleagues, he completed his MD years after qualifying as a doctor.

   Note

   In British medicine the letters mark a later achievement, not a starting one. It is a higher doctorate earned through research, so a British physician may practice for years before adding MD. That reverses the US medical degree, where the same initials come with qualification itself. On a British CV, read MD as a research credential rather than proof that someone is a doctor.

6. 6
   nounabbreviation

   Abbreviation of macular degeneration.

   Her MD has progressed slowly, and she can still drive during the day.

   Smoking raises the risk of developing MD later in life.

   Note

   A disease of the retina, and the loss it names is specifically of central vision. Like the full term, it is uncountable: one speaks of the risk of MD, or of her MD progressing, never of an MD. In an eye clinic that grammar is what separates the condition from the physician treating it.

7. 7
   nouninitialism

   Initialism of MiniDisc.

   In the late 1990s, he recorded radio shows onto an MD every week.

   Collectors still trade MDs of rare live concerts online.

   Note

   Like MiniDisc itself, MD can name three things: the magneto-optical audio format, a single disc in that format, or the machine that plays and records it. Only the format is uncountable. Discs and players can be counted, so one records onto an MD and collectors trade MDs. The full name is written as one word with a capital inside: MiniDisc.

8. 8
   symbol · Md

   The chemical symbol for the element mendelevium.

   In the actinide row, Md sits between fermium and nobelium.

   Each run of the experiment produced only a few atoms of Md.

   Note

   Only the mix of cases makes these two letters the element: a capital M, a lowercase d, no period. In capitals the same pair stands for a medical doctor, so in running text that small d does real work. Aloud the symbol is read as mendelevium, and older texts may give the element as Mv, a symbol it once carried.

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