Forum Charter updated 30/09/14

DrIndy

Welcome to Health Sciences Forum. Please read the following before posting.

This Forum is for all who enjoy and/or are interested in Health Sciences. This title includes all aspects of scientific and associated social aspects to working within the Health Sciences field. This includes disciplines such as medicine, nursing, allied health therapy, dietetics, optometry as well as all other paramedical disciplines.

We are primarily a scientific forum but we also discuss associated issues which affect our professions such as medical and paramedical politics, sociology and employment.

We have a subforum here which is specifically tailored to health sciences education to discuss entry into health sciences courses as well as undergraduate and postgraduate studies for all our disciplines.

There are just a few things to note when posting here

First and foremost.......

THIS IS NOT A MEDICAL ADVICE BOARD.

No medical advice will be given here, so please don't ask for any.
If you want medical advice go to a doctor.

THIS INCLUDES ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES
Discuss the topic freely, but do not post treatments, diagnosis or remedies.

To clarify precisely what this means:

This is what sort of information can be requested on this forum and what should not. For medicolegal reasons, Boards.ie cannot provide any information which would consist of a diagnostic or therapeutic information. Despite this, I encourage people to discuss medical conditions and treatments available for those - so long as it does not substitute in any way seeking information from a qualified and registered medical practitioner.

Hence questions such as "Do I have asthma?" are not accepted and will be locked whereas questions such as "What are the symptoms of asthma and how does the disease occur?" are acceptable.

Likewise "What treatment should I be receiving?" is not acceptable but "What treatments are available and what are the side effects?" is acceptable so long as the information does not prejudice seeking the advice of a registered medical practitioner.

This includes recommendations of alternative therapies which have not been recommended by your attending physician/surgeon/GP.

There is a very fine line between legitimate information being provided and discussed and a post becoming a diagnostic or therapeutic one and I must unfortunately decide when the line is being crossed and the thread should be locked/deleted.

If you have a medical condition and/or are worried about any symptoms you have or therapy you receive, please go to your GP and do not post them here as they cannot be addressed on this forum.

Finally - it is good to have a scientific discussion on new research and clinical trials papers in ALL fields of Health Sciences and I encourage people from all those backgrounds to get involved in this forum.

And as usual

1) No Muppettry, Trolling, Abuse or Racism. We can all express opinions with out resorting to any of them.

2) No Flaming. Science is generally theory based. Different people have different theories. You can disagree with and debate them without flaming.

3) No advertising. Contact the admins if you want to arrange advertising space.

As this is a science board, if you wish to discuss personal issues relating to your long term medical conditions, please seek out the Long Term Illness subforum where you have the opportunity to talk to other people who have these diagnosis and how they manage them in their lives. The Personal Issues forum is also available to people who have issues which do not fit into the above.

tallaght01

Hi folks.

Just a quick update of the charter. We've had problems recently with a lot of posts extolling the virtues of CAM. That, in itself, isn't a problem. Quite the opposite, in fact. Many medics don't rate CAM at all, whilst others are CAM practitioners. That alone makes it an interesting topic for discussion.

The problem has been, however, that people have been making claims, with absoloutely no evidence to back them up. As this is a scientific forum, this has understandably caused some annoyance.

So, after consulting with those who wanted to offer their opinions, we have come up with some simple guidelines for posting about CAM.

All we really ask is that you take into account the fact that this is a scientific forum, and that you should present some kind of evidence to back up any claims.

"Evidence" should take the form of some kind of scientific investigation. Specifically, websites and opinion are not evidence.

There's not a lot else to say, except to ask that we all try and keep it civil. Both sides of the debate have, in the past, lost the plot a little bit. It's fair enough, and DrIndy and I aren't here to nanny people. But we do have a generally pleasant atmosphere on the forum, and it would be nice to leep it that way. So, if you see a thread on CAM, with no evidence base to back up claims, or no attempt at engagement in sensible discussion, just drop on eof the mods a line, or you can report it.

There's no point in getting aggro on these threads, as they're likely to be deleted anyway.

I know the new addition to the charter is a bit waffly, so thanks for reading

tallaght01

After discussing it on the forum in this thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055571800

It was decided we wouldn't allow threads asking for recommendations for specific professionals, such as docs, physios, chiropracters etc.

Getting into naming someone online implies an endorsement, which we really can't get involved in, and opens the discussion up to someone else coming along and telling us "that physio/surgeon is crap, don't go to him".

It's messy, and it doesn't really come under our remit of discussing issues related to biology and medicine.

Thanks, as always, for your co-operation

sam34

OK, charter update.

there is a zero tolerance policy on medical advice here, irrespective of how innocuous or general it seems. there will be no coments made/advice given on peoples personal health/medical situations.

all such threads will be locked.

however, that has been policy for some time and we still get the advice threads.

so, we have decided to infract posters seeking medical advice from here on in. (obviously, if any poster gives medical advice prior to a thread getting locked, they too will be infracted).

there is no point PMing us afterwards saying "ah come on i wasnt looking for advice as such..." - zero tolerance is zero tolerance.

the reasons for this have already been explained in this thread and in the charter.

no further warnings. dont PM telling us you werent aware - its in the charter and in the big sticky.

RobFowl

sam34 wrote: »

OK, charter update.

there is a zero tolerance policy on medical advice here, irrespective of how innocuous or general it seems. there will be no coments made/advice given on peoples personal health/medical situations.

all such threads will be locked.

however, that has been policy for some time and we still get the advice threads.

so, we have decided to infract posters seeking medical advice from here on in. (obviously, if any poster gives medical advice prior to a thread getting locked, they too will be infracted).

there is no point PMing us afterwards saying "ah come on i wasnt looking for advice as such..." - zero tolerance is zero tolerance.

the reasons for this have already been explained in this thread and in the charter.

no further warnings. dont PM telling us you werent aware - its in the charter and in the big sticky.

Can I just remind everyone of this !!
PS asking for peoples "experiences" of a certain treatment, doctor or hospital etc IS asking for medical advice no matter how much you protest it isn't .....

RobFowl

No in-thread discussions or comments about moderation. If you have a question about the forum, charter, or actions taken by moderator, please PM the mod. If you feel another member violates these guidelines, do not comment in-thread, rather use the Report button [!] in their post, and the mod will review it when time permits.