I think the reason that giving and/or seeking medical advice is frowned upon, has to do with the sad fact that ever since peace was excommunicated from the Boards, there’s been no one left to provide accurate, sensible, and trustworthy medical information.
There’ve been quite a few of those recently, and I’ve chimed in in a few of them: I think that recommending seeing a doctor about possible medication and therapy {which I’ve done} doesn’t really count as medical advice, and those threads have tended to stay open.
On the other hand someone was asking for specific advice along the lines of “which antidepressant should I take?” in IMHO, which most definitely does count as medical advice, and the thread was locked quickly.
My take is that the Mods and Admins are reluctant to lay down hard and fast rules about what constitutes medical advice because someone will always be trying to sneak one past and then say “Well, it says here…” Medical advice is like pornography: impossible to define, but you know it when you see it.
Anyway, why does one need advice about removing a splinter on a message board? Get something sharp, pass it through a lighter flame, and then start digging.
Most of the time, if the questioin isn’t life threatening, you can call the nurse at the doctor’s office and get a free answer. If a message board computer guru gives you bad advice, you simply reformat your computer–no harm, no foul. If someone give you bum advice about your car repair, you may have to get the job done again by a professional, but all you’re out is a few bucks. Same with home repair.
But, if you get bad medical advice, you might live(or not) to regret it. If you get bad legal advice, you might wish you had died.
I respectfully disagree.
I did one better and called a Nurse line sponsored by my health plan. They said I should go to urgent care, go figure, for a splinter that wouldn’t come out.
Well it did. It was about 1/4 in. long and about the diameter of the graphite in a standard #2 pencil. I tried opening the hole with a sharp knife, but wasn’t able to dig quite deep enough. I ended up squeezing it back out, along with another sliver this afternoon.
I don’t take the closing of that thread personally. It just seems to me that if I were really willing to slice my arm open, I would have just done that, without asking for advice. I was just hoping for a home remedy type thing. I technically didn’t even ask a question at all.
I vented, the splinter is out, I’m over it.
I doubt that anyone could offer worse advice than that, seeing as a twiggish bit of wood that’s difficult to extract would obviously have entered at a much less oblique angle than the poster was thinking of. I would be fun to try to think of worse advice, though.
A twig buried in flesh is kind of like a tiny stump, right? Maybe what’s needed is a tiny blast. “Ladyfingers” spring to mind, naturally. What you need is to get one in there under the wood…
Ah, the Rambo III manouevre.
Maybe its hard to understand, but, Only licenced Physicians may legally give medical advice. I can explain the physiology behind a symptom but I could go to JAIL for giving my opinion as to how to treat said symptom.
Its called practicing medicine without a licence.
Now grow up.
I don’t think that’s true in Australia. I think the legality/illegality of the advice comes down to whether or not you present yourself as a doctor.
I wonder who lobbied for that law.
Maybe you should grow up from your doctor worship, nurse. Some of us got over the EXALTED PHYSICIAN attitude when we were 16.
OH, mighty doctor! You and you alone can offer advice on what ails me. Allow me to bow before you.
I’ve removed my own warts with a jackknife. I’ve lived with infected lacerations. I’ve splinted my own broken finger.
Anyone who wants advice on any of those things, I’ll give it to them.
If I could have replaced my ACL with a sliver of my patella tendon on my own, I would have done that, too.
You are free to do whatever you want, of course, and people are free to follow your advice. But you are not free to give such advice on our Message Boards.
Australian law is irrelevant to this situation; U.S. law is what rules the Straight Dope Message Boards. And U.S. law is pretty clear on the illegality of giving medical advice (or legal advice) if you are not duly licensed. For the SDMB, we don’t care too much about someone being arrested for breaking this law, but we do care about someone using that law as the basis for a lawsuit against us. Ergo, we do not permit such discussions.
That, plus, it’s pretty damn stupid to rely on Aunt Minnie’s advice on how to cure a cold or remove warts, when medical science has far more expertise and a far better success rate. Or, worse even than Aunt Minnie, there are people online who do NOT have your best interests at heart, and who may deliberately give malicious or harmful suggestions. You think everyone on the internet is well-intentioned? You respond to those emails about bank accounts in Nigeria?
In practice, no one has problems with asking about hiccough cures in the MB. But there’s a line somewhere, and we draw it on the side of caution. Some of you may know that I help sort the mail to Cecil. Just this week, I read a letter from a worried mother wondering whether her daughter has a brain tumor, and describing some of the symptoms in her email to Cecil. And a letter from a grandmother asking how to deal with a teenager who might be psychotic. So, no, it is not the case that all readers/posters are “intelligent adults” who can make intelligent decisions. Not when they’re writing to a newspaper columnist to ask for diagnosis of serious symptoms. (PS - I reply to tell them to see a doctor, or to go to a medical aid clinic if they can’t afford a doctor.)
It probably does say something about the cost of medical advice in the US, that people look at alternatives, such as the newspaper or online or the latest fad in Zen dog-hair therapy.
You’re absolutely right! If I get bad medical advice or legal advice, I’m screwed. I can’t afford to go to a second doctor/lawyer for another opinion, and our society is set up such that I can’t get second opinions from my non-licensed peers.
Oh wait… that’s not what you meant, is it? You meant that I’m likely to take Joe Bob Online’s advice to use a nail file to remove my tumor? I’m not that stupid. Call me an optimist, but I don’t think that most other people are either. (The ones who do rely on such advice are likely to come up with even worse remedies on their own!)
I think the danger is much greater when we have no checks and balances on the medical establishment. Not all doctors are created equal. We should be able to help each other with anecdotes, brainstorming etc. so that I find out sooner rather than later that my doctor has missed an obvious diagnosis and that I might want to visit someone else.
The same goes for legal advice. How sad that we all insist that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” and then turn around and laugh at people who can’t afford to pay $200+/hr to find out if there’s something they need to know.
(Disclaimer: The SDMB can obviously do whatever it wants. I’m disagreeing with the general societal trend, not the SDMB rules in particular.)
Well, how much would you pay for these steak knives and a little betadine?
How true. My medical insurance was billed $145 a few weeks ago for a doctor visit. I said “I’m having problem A, I’ve taken drug X and it worked great!” Dr says"Hmm, I see. I’m gonna prescribe drug Y." He knows best right? Bullshit. He might as well have prescribed baby aspirin, no results whatsoever.
Coincidentally, there have been discussions here about drug X, and all agree that it does what it’s supposed to. I know there’s a reason that doctors don’t prescribe morphine before they write for Tylenol, maybe he was being cautious, at my expense.
If bona fide lawyers and doctors are infallible, why do we have malpractice lawyers?
I’m employed by the medical industry, but my job is to keep people informed and help them save money. I wish I could receive the same services here.
Truck, my friend, You are assuming a great deal. What makes you think I even have respect for doctors? I simply told you what the law is. I rarely go to a doctor myself. I’m smarter than most of them. BUT… I don’t ask faceless strangers for advice either!
You might use a little reason, to realize that your chances of getting anything from anyone is predicated on mutual respect. By being snarky and insulting, you merely alienate the people around you.
You’re making yourself miserable, and for what? A cause you can’t win because the law of the land is not on your side.
Stop killing the messengers.
Actually, Minnie started her post after being quite the wench to me in a thread I started which got closed down regardiong weight loss, and then was reopened - in a way - in the Pit. If you ask me - and you haven’t, admittedly - Minnie got JUST what she dished out and couldn’t handle it. She was a total wench to me, making some incredible accusations, and never responded when I asked her to explain her vitriol.
Not much of a loss. Sure, CK could’ve apologized better, but the fact that she flew into a rage makes me laugh myself nauseated. Read what she said to me, and then read how she responded to what CK said to her.
Pot, let me introduce you to kettle.
Regards,
Inky
Who feels no loss at MPs absence, vitriol and all.
I didn’t know Minnie before I read that ATMB thread. If CK was responding to her that way because of some previous posting history, maybe that puts it into perspective…maybe. Maybe.
All I know is that thread stuck in my craw, because I could see myself asking the same question (had I even known there was now a taboo on asking for medical advice…I knew that there was a bit of a taboo on giving medical advice) and CK’s use of the word assinine [sic] just seemed totally inappropriate, especially since it was not even in the Pit. It still seems inappropriate, even if Minnie’s response did go over the top. I mean, who’s the mod here?
The apology did seem a bit like that of a young boy whose mother makes him apologize to his sister after a fight. I could see why a person would be offended by that. I would have been offended by that. Maybe not as offended as Minnie was, but still…