out and I am feeling lightheaded. How can I correct the problem? (not looking for medical advice)? 
Any other favorites out there where posters ask for obvious legal or medical advice, but end with the disclaimer to make it all better?
“I am looking to get divorced from my wife- what should I do to make sure that I get everything and she gets nothing? Not looking for legal advice!”
“I have a rash- what should I suggest to the doctor as to the cause? Not looking for medical advice!”
“Baby emerging from between my legs unexpectedly- what should I do? Not looking for medical advice!” (Okay, that hasn’t happened on this board yet, but I expect it any day.)
Anything regarding Stoid and her Sisyphean appeal.
I just accidentally shot my wife and she’s bleeding pretty badly. (Not looking for medical and/or legal advice.)
How does it feel to have a nice cool breeze blowing across your brain?
OP forgot the “Need Answer Fast!” in the thread title.
Personally, I would question the policy. In many cases, I just would like a second opinion about whether it’s serious enough to see a doctor or lawyer. I can understand that it is a liability issue for the board, but everybody, at some point, is not sure whether they should go to a doctor/lawyer or not. On top of this, in this economy, it’s could save someone from making a substantial co-payment if they find out that whatever happened will clear up on it’s own in a few days or if you rub a lemon on it.
That’s just because the axe drove bits of skull into his brain causing clear damage to the frontal cortex - not that I’m a doctor or anything.
(I just had to see the other side of the coin and look at the “post” side of the equation.)
I can see it now.
Poster I: Should I see a doctor about this blah blah blah?
Poster II: Nah, forgeddaboutit!
Mod: Poster I has passed away due to a sudden illness.
Poster II: Oopsie!
I want to go on a diet. Need help fast
I remember reading about an accident in the news a few years ago that left some guy with a threaded pipe sticking all the way through his head. He was rushed to an emergency room, where the doctors literally unscrewed it. I could have done that.
I tend to agree. If someone asks a household electrical or a car maintenance question, they can get help on the board even though they risk death or injury by doing it themselves.
I think that the reason it exists in society (not this board, per se) is that the ABA and the AMA have done a great job in cementing their monopoly through the force of law.
Some years ago it would have been nifty if there had been a message board around where I could have said, “Hey, my husband’s been throwing up every 20 minutes for the last 24 hours, should I take him to the emergency room?”
In fact what happened was, I called the emergency room and asked them, and some doctor said, “Well, he might have an acute abdomen, better bring him in to rule that out.”
What the doctor meant was that he might have appendicitis. If only the doctor had said that.
He didn’t (this is my husband I’m talking about now, not the doctor)–he’d already had it and had the appendix removed, and I knew that. And even if I had somehow missed the scar, he knew that. But I didn’t know what the doc meant by “acute abdomen” and neither did my husband. It sounded very threatening.
I’ll bet somebody here would have known what it meant.
So I dragged my poor sick husband, and it was not easy, off the the ER, where they said “Oh, he’s already had an appendectomy, so it’s not that. Must be some kind of stomach virus. Go easy on the liquids and don’t feed him anything.” They did give him some kind of anti-nausea shot, which may have helped. He only threw up a couple more times after that.
He was about as happy about it as my cat would have been (and they were about as helpful) but, unlike the cat, he knew I did it for his own good.
“Acute abdomen” could also refer to such entities as peritonitis, acute gastritis, acute cholecystitis, and so on. It doesn’t only refer to appendicitis.
I’m not sure that the person providing home electrical or car maintenance advice faces the same risk of malpractice liability, though. I think part of the restriction on medical/legal advice is to protect the advice-giver, who may not be thinking about that issue while typing on a putatively anonymous board, and to protect the board from the advice-giver trying to somehow pass off some of that liability onto the board.
Regarding medical questions, there are plenty of other places to seek answers. Two that come to mind are WebMD and Ask-A-Nurse.
It has been my experience that there are two questions that can generally be answered “Yes”. Those questions are, “Is this a scam?” and “Should I see a doctor?”
Checks forum. MPSIMS. Yep, MPSIMS.
Hey folks, this isn’t the proper place to discuss the Board Policy on not giving medical and legal advice. That forum would be ATMB.
This thread is supposed to be examples of things where the OP posts an obvious legal or medical question and then appends a disclaimer supposedly to make it acceptable.
One clarifying question for jtgain: are you looking for humorous ideas, or actual threads/comments that have been posted?
This is also not the proper place for junior modding. If you feel that posts are made in error, please use the “report this post” function to alert a real, live mod.
Alice, you are aware of the irony of your post, right? 