Would you like more doctor participation on DEZ?

[Rebecca Petris]

Please vote in the poll above. If you like, you can add comments below.

[Gabriel]

It says I may not vote in this poll. I was wondering why not? Well, I would say yes.

[Rebecca Petris]

Can you try again now please, Gabriel? I found a setting awry that may have been responsible.

[Scout]

While I probably will be in the minority, I am reluctant to say yes to more physician participation, except in the capacity you have already set up. In other words, in the open forum for “patients and pros.”

I have been around this forum and previous forums since my LASIK surgery 12 years ago. I have found the physician participation to range from helpful to confusing to (on a rare occasion) condescending.

This is first and foremost a forum in support of dry eye patients. Having so many participants who need help and hope linked together with members who have discovered answers in their own journey is a wonderful thing. It is a rare member here who tries to be a diagnostician or doctor. Members here are by and large supportive and informative using their own experiences as examples. The ideas and suggestions are exchanged with large doses of support and concern. The information and tips can be used to bring to a doctor or possibly to find a new doctor.

In previous forums in which I have participated, an occasional physician (or several) would be so involved in the forum that the members would begin to be intimidated by the criticisms and corrections that the physician would interject into a discussion. Members became hesitant to add their own ideas or experiences, waiting for Dr X to respond.

I personally love to hear each and every member’s experiences. I have learned so much from the members here. Most of what I have learned about how to manage my symptoms over the years, I have learned from other members' experiences.

I do believe health care professionals should be welcomed here. But I would hope that their contributions would not change the valuable exchange of ideas and personal experiences among the members here.

Just my two cents.

Scout

[Rebecca Petris]

I agree, Scout (we've had this discussion many times in various forms and forums haven't we ) and I would never want to compromise what we have here in terms of a safe, supportive discussion environment for patients. Even the most well-meaning doctors, if, say, they had free access to our most-used Open Forum, would ultimately change the character of the forum in subtle ways. I would not want to sacrifice the safety and supportiveness aspects even in favor of 'information'. Participation by doctors here, whatever form it might take, needs to be in clearly designated areas without infringing on our patients-only community needs.

Every couple of years as one dry eye 'generation' here gives way to another, I like to check in and see how people feel about inviting doctors. This year, there's an additional motive and that is that I'm hearing from more doctors who want to participate. Clearly, some just want to abuse it for PR purposes but there are some really reputable corneal specialists and optometrists who read this board regularly and would like to be able to pitch in now and then. If people here would like to have access to more dr. input, and if I can find better ways to make dr. participation user-friendly for both sides, I want to explore it. Hence the poll

[PotatoCakes]

I understand the hesitancy, particularly in light of the fact that many here have had less than ideal experiences with doctors, in one shape or form. That said, I think, with some rules (for instance, Drs must identify themselves in each post and have basic information in their signature so that we know where they are coming from -- not geographically but so we know if they are a Lasik clinic, University MD, corneal specialist, etc), it would be beneficial for both sides.

There are times when I think it would be great to have an M.D. or D.O. weigh in on something. As patients, sometimes we can know enough to be dangerous.
The other side of it, I think there are some good opportunities for doctors to LEARN FROM US. They are more likely to do this if we interact with them, IMO, vs shove them into a corner. Even if they start out lurking, they are more apt to lose interest if they can't participate. We trade a LOT of really great, useful information on this site and if there's a doctor who has a patient he/she is trying to help and he/she reads something here that can be passed along to that patient or gives him/her an idea of some treatment to try, we've created a winning situation and hopefully, an medical advocate for people like us.

Some suggested rules MD/ODs would have to abide by: No soliciting of any kind (you are here to help and to learn, not gain business through your participation, if people would like to learn more about your business, they may contact you through PM), Your username must contain some indication of what kind of doctor you are, Your signature must contain information on what your speciality is (Lasik, corneal specialist, etc), etc.

[Gabriel]

Potato cakes, I agree with you 100%. Both sides could learn more from each other if done in the right manner. And hopefully with that could spread better care for everyone. It has to be done carefully and with rules.

[Rebecca Petris]

I remember making some efforts in this direction in years past, only to run out of steam trying to navigate it all in a way that didn't create too much work. Raises so many questions... whether to validate that they are doctors (and how), whether to have them all post under their names or require that they DON'T use their real names, whether to let them have a link to their site in their profile (as opposed to signature), and on and on. But it really needs to be done and while the twenty-odd who have voted so far are a very small sample, there has not been a single "no" vote which is significant. Anyway, I'll get cracking on on this. Thanks for all the input thus far, and keep the comments flowing!

[PotatoCakes]

Rebecca - When I was writing my post, I thought about the name thing. It's a tough call because, as a patient, I can see good & bad on both sides of the fence. I think, in the end, though, I like the idea of them NOT using their real names or clinics.

#1 It lessens the likelihood of promotional motives
#2 If a physician is on the site trying to learn more to help a patient, he / she will be able to be more open, not only in terms of privacy for the patient but he/she may feel more comfortable saying "I'm here to learn from you..."
#3 If someone here is interested in visiting that doctor, they always have the option of PMing to get that information.

[MaryVa61]

I can imagine it would be a lot of work, to come up with rules and limitations to prevent problems. But for all the reasons given by others I like the idea of docs being able to participate in the patient forum, so long as it's clear that when we post there we are primarily looking for input from other patients so they are encouraged to respond even if a doctor has already done so.

I doubt you're going to be able to validate they are all really doctors and not sure it's really necessary since they can't actually diagnose or prescribe via a post.

By the same token, I find the pros section a little confusing. Sometimes I'm not sure if I should respond to a post there since I'm only a patient. I get confused as to whether it's for all to respond or just docs to respond. Sometimes I've responded (to e-mail link posts) not realizing it's a post in the the pros corner until too late.

[Rebecca Petris]

I
By the same token, I find the pros section a little confusing. Sometimes I'm not sure if I should respond to a post there since I'm only a patient. I get confused as to whether it's for all to respond or just docs to respond. Sometimes I've responded (to e-mail link posts) not realizing it's a post in the the pros corner until too late.

Yes it's quite confusing especially if your main way of reading posts is with the What's New button.

So I have been doing some furniture rearrangement the last day or so.

If you click on "Forum" in the green bar at the top of the screen you'll see the new arrangement. I've gotten rid of Pro Corner, and instead I'm limiting where doctors can participate just by controlling their posting permissions in the database.

All of the most active forums are now under the Discussion & Q&A heading, including the forum for doctor-patient interaction i.e. "Open Forum - Patients & Pros". There's nothing formal, no rules for either of the open forums, feel free to post just as freely in the Patients & Pros forum as you would in the patients-only open forum. There are certain other sections I felt it would not be appropriate to have doctors involved (some obvious like Plug-a-Doc, some not so obvious) or where they can start a thread but not reply to others (like Introduce Yourself... anybody including a dr can introduce themselves, but I don't want newbies pounced on by well-meaning doctors with medical-only responses, so only patients can respond to welcome new members). I'll continue to tweak and anybody who runs into problems or has a concern, let me know....

[MaryVa61]

I like the way you're rearranged things Rebecca. Very nice.

The Patient & Pros forum does still have a description that sounds like patients are welcome to ask a question that is for pros only to respond to. But that doesn't sounds like what you wanted, based on your comments above? I'd still feel like if I wanted responses from both patients and pros, I'd need to post the same message in both forums. Not complaining though, if that's what you think will work best. I don't know what works best for the forum!

Thanks for the improvements!

<<Patients, post questions here for discussion with eyecare professionals. Pros, feel free to post idea, advice & questions here.

[Gabriel]

I don't understand why this thread has two hundred and something views but only 28 votes. I felt like we would have had more votes than this.

[Rebecca Petris]

Now that I'm finally back in circulation I'm going to bump this up... if you haven't voted, PLEASE DO. Meanwhile I'm working up some revised participation guidelines for doctors/industry professionals and will post again soon.

[Tanner]

Yes, I would like to see more dr participation.